


Navigation By Crow

by crossestman, somepallings



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: A Board Game of English Magic, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Jane Austen and John Segundus are FRIENDS, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Board Game of English Magic, M/M, Magical Academia, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, academic texts that don't exist in our world, and no-one has spotted them all!, crossestman and I finally officially collaborate, domesticity at starecross, fairly canon-compliant, metareferential, or do they, there are so many easter eggs in the interludes guys, we're ignoring the idea that the johns didn't meet between the beginning and end of the book though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:02:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 33,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22376155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossestman/pseuds/crossestman, https://archiveofourown.org/users/somepallings/pseuds/somepallings
Summary: You'd never take Childermass for a reader of romantic novels, but he has bested many challenges in service of his master.Jane Austen doesn't like Bath very much, but you can still sometimes find her there.John Segundus simply wishes to be an obliging friend.Gilbert Norrell thought the book was horrid.
Relationships: John Childermass/John Segundus
Comments: 101
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

**February 1809**

It was almost dark when Childermass approached Mr Norrell’s desk in his study overlooking Hanover Square and deposited a fat paper-wrapped parcel in front of him, causing Norrell to jump and drop his teacup into its saucer with a rattle. He looked up at Childermass, who was holding a bundle of letters in one hand, with a pained expression.

“Oh, must you startle me so? I might have spilled tea on my book!” he said, running his hand over the open page in front of him as if he was worried that saying it could have made it true.

“I knocked. And I called your name half a dozen times”, Childermass said, flipping through the letters as he sat at his own desk in the corner of the room. “At any rate, you will want to read that”, he said, pointing the letter he was reading at the package in front of his master.

Norrell frowned and picked at the string holding the parcel closed. “What is it”, he asked, “a book..?”

Childermass did not answer.

Norrell pulled the trailing ends of the knot, unwrapping the parcel, and discovered not a book, or at least not a neatly-bound, printed book, but a hand-written manuscript in a tidy, feminine hand. He sniffed peevishly and lifted the title page.

“Northanger Abbey?” he read, wrinkling his nose. “Childermass, I insist you answer me, what is this and why must I read it? Where is this place, “Northanger Abbey”, and whose book is this?”

Childermass took his time in answering, writing a careful note in his notebook from one of the letters in the pile on his own small desk.

“Please trust me, Mr Norrell. You know I am not in the habit of steering you wrong,” he said eventually, standing, intending to direct Lucas to bring another pot of tea for his master, and to put another log on the fire. As he passed the back of Norrell’s chair he paused and said: “I must ask you to be careful with that manuscript, it’s expected back at the publishing house in a week and the publisher will be much put-out if it is not kept in the condition you find it.”

*

The next day dawned reasonably bright and not too chilly, not that Gilbert Norrell noticed the weather. He had been up all night reading a book that by turns infuriated him, bored him to tears and, worst of all, at times entertained and amused him. Still, he had persisted, convinced by Childermass’s insistence that he must read it, though truth be told he hadn’t taken any notes past chapter 6.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. Chapter 6 had been bad enough.

The door to the study opened and Childermass came into the room. Norrell looked round at him and snapped: “Oh, good morning to you sir, and I hope you slept well, truly I do!”

He slapped a hand down on the stack of paper on the desk, before continuing, “A novel, Mr Childermass! A novel, the worst kind of nonsense for silly young women, containing I don’t know how many diversions and jokes at the expense of persons and places I know- and am glad to know - nothing of.” He glared at Childermass, who had closed the door and was looking expectantly at him.

Norrell passed a hand over his eyes and sighed, “I suppose you have already read this?”

Childermass nodded, leaning against the wall next to the door.

“That being so, why on earth did you not simply direct me to chapter 6, which contains the only detail of interest? Why did you suggest I spend so many hours at this… this _romance_?”

Childermass smiled his tree-root smile at Norrell.

“Well, sir, you are the magician. I could not be sure I had not missed anything in the text.”

Norrell was torn between believing this explanation – it was quite true that he was the only _true_ magician in England and may see things that others would not – and recognising it for the cheek it was. As usual, in the case of Childermass, he let it pass. He turned back to his notes.

“This is the passage you are referring to, I suppose,” he said, and passed the single page to Childermass’s outstretched hand.

Childermass read aloud:

 _“Dear creature! how much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho, we will read The Italian together; and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you… I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocket-book. Castle of Wolfenbach, Prospero’s Archipelago_ _,_ _Clermont_ _,_ _Mysterious Warnings, Xenophon’s Notobasis_ _,_ _Necromancer of the Black Forest_ _,_ _Midnight Bell_ _,_ _Orphan of the Rhine_ _,_ _Navigation by Crow_ _,_ _and_ _Horrid Mysteries. Those will last us some time.”_

He looked up at Norrell. “Aye,” he said, “And I see you have underlined the interesting ones.” He made to pass the paper back to Norrell, who waved him away, shuddering a little.

“No, no, you keep it”, he said, fluttering his right hand before wringing it together with his left in a miserably anxious manner. “Who is she, Childermass, this young lady who refers carelessly to books she should not have heard of? Books that even I have never held a copy of?” His tone grew a little scornful as he continued, “Not, of course, that I really feel the lack of _Prospero’s Archipelago._ Everything I have read of that work names it puerile, frivolous and full of obscure satire of people long dead and matters long since passed. Still… it is a book about magic, and a rare one at that. This Miss Austen should have no knowledge of it, not to mention _Navigation by Crow_ and _Xenophon’s Notobasis_!”

Childermass carefully folded the paper and put it in his pocket.

“She is an authoress, sir, not published as yet, but I have reason to believe she will achieve some measure of success in time”, he said.

 _Reason to believe,_ thought Norrell, _it is as much to say that your infernal cards have told you so._ But he didn’t chide Childermass on this. He preferred not to know.

“You must find out if she has these books, Childermass. And you must…”

“Yes sir, I know. I will find out what there is to be found out, and part her from the books if the need arises”, Childermass replied, leaning over Norrell and neatly bundling the manuscript back into its brown paper. He placed the parcel neatly under one arm and turned, leaving the room and closing the door softly behind him.

Norrell sighed, yawned and pushed his cap up off his forehead, rubbing his eyes. He sat for a few moments staring at nothing, and then rang the bell for coffee.

*

It was the list that had first alerted John Childermass to the manuscript in question. It seems that a Bath publisher had come into possession of it in 1803, and through Childermass’s web of contacts in the bookselling publishing world he had come to know of the intriguing list of horrid books contained within it.

Being Norrell’s man of business meant that Childermass was part housekeeper, part butler, part spymaster and many other things besides. It was his housekeeperly nature that was so enamoured of and comforted by lists, he often thought. On any given day he knew, among other things, what the cook had on her shopping list, the items of household linen currently out for washing, the books Norrell intended to have re-bound, the list of invitations he had had to decline on his master’s behalf, and the shorter list of invitations he had insisted his master accept. It had been said of him that Mr Childermass could detect a list more surely than a plumbob.

This particular list interested Childermass greatly. He had investigated each one of the books mentioned, most being lurid novels of the fashionable type, not featuring magic beyond the usual conventional mentions. But the other three, Notobasis, Crow and Prospero, while being full of quite enough hand-wringing and dramatic happenings to satisfy the most discerning young lady, were also unquestionably books about magic. Thus, believed his master (and Childermass too), they belonged in the library at Hurtfew.

Childermass was sitting in the kitchen of the Hanover Square house, pondering these matters. The lady in question, a Miss Jane Austen, had until recently lived with her family in Bath, and still made the occasional visit there with friends. He had some idea of attending upon her there, but as yet he lacked the necessary introduction. Had Miss Austen been a man, Childermass would have felt no compunction in making himself known to the gentleman in one of the drinking-houses of that convivial town, but it would not be so easy to find an appropriate method of making himself known to a lady.

As he thought on this, he remembered a letter that had arrived for him that morning. He took it from his pocket and opened it. It proved to be from a person he had written to looking for knowledge of Miss Austen’s friends and correspondents.

He scanned the list of names, recognising one or two, dismissing them as people he could scarcely call upon any more than he could call upon Miss Austen herself.

And then a name caught his eye. He raised his eyebrows. This was promising.

_John Segundus_


	2. Chapter 2

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man, in possession of no fortune and in anticipation of a long carriage journey, must be in want of a cushion. Where John Segundus’s cushion had come from he didn’t know. It had been in the carriage when he got in. He assumed it must belong to Mr Norrell, who admittedly did seem like the kind of man who would attend to his own comfort in such a manner.

He glanced at his carriage-mate, who had no cushion, and was sitting with his long legs stretched out in front of him, at least as far as it was possible to stretch in such close quarters. Mr Childermass was looking out of the window at the countryside passing by.

Mr Segundus still wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing here, with this wild-looking man, in Mr Norrell’s carriage with Mr Norrell’s coachman driving Mr Norrell’s horses.

He had received a letter from Childermass, thanking him belatedly for the letter he had written to the newspaper and asking, not in so many words, if Mr Segundus who was so kind and obliging, could help make an introduction for him to a lady lately of Bath, currently of Berkshire. If you had asked Mr Segundus to tell you how he had taking this impression from Childermass’s letter he honestly wouldn’t have been able to. Still, he had written immediately to Miss Austen, and replied to Childermass assuring him that nothing would bring him greater pleasure than for the three of them to meet.

How Mr Segundus had come to be friends with Miss Austen was much easier to explain. When he had been a younger man and his father was alive, he had been invited to the usual number of parties and soirees, young men always being a valued commodity at these things be they ever so un-eligible. It was at one of these assemblies that he had met a young lady reading a book and, seeing that it was a magically-inclined book (it was, in fact, _Prospero’s Archipelago_ , not that Mr Segundus would have remembered the title at this late remove) he had made some comment on the fact that he had never seen a full copy of the work. They had thus spent a pleasant evening discussing the people referenced, the magic described and the obscure jokes that only a scholar of Shakespeare and 16th century politics could ever hope to understand. He’d astonished her by revealing that he’d seen a fragment of the original manuscript while he was a student, and by the (slightly scandalous) theory that the author was in fact John Dee, Queen Elizabeth’s magician.

They’d kept up a lively correspondence ever since. But what John Childermass, and by extension Gilbert Norrell, could want with the acquaintance, Segundus couldn’t imagine. He had considered that they might discuss it on the journey from London to Bath, but so far they hadn’t discussed much of anything at all. Childermass had enquired about his journey from York to London (long, uneventful, and cheap, which added to the length and subtracted considerably from the comfort) but that was about the extent of their conversation so far. He had been astonished (and very pleased) to learn that they were to take Norrell’s carriage.

“Were it just myself”, Childermass had said, cocking his hat to him when he stepped out of his lodging-house to see the fine black carriage there in the street with Davy up front and Childermass stepping out of the carriage door just like-

Ah, he should be more careful than to be continually comparing Mr Childermass to one of Mrs Radcliffe’s heroes (or indeed, her villains, he had thought, blushing a little). These were dangerous waters and he was well-used to navigating away from them.

"Were it just myself travelling, I would ride my own horse", Childermass had said, tipping his hat to Segundus, "but as it is to be the two of us, Mr Norrell has provided his carriage for our comfort".

Childermass had then helped him into the carriage (not helping the blush to dissipate much at all) before getting in himself, and away they had gone.

And now here they were, some hours out of London, and no conversation worth noting had been had, and Segundus was thinking about the cushion, of all things.

He glanced at Childermass again and decided to make an attempt. There was something that had been rather preying on his mind.

“You mentioned in your letter a book”, he said, “Or books? I hope you do not mean to rob my friend Miss Austen of any part of her library”. He pursed his lips, meaning to look disapproving.

Childermass turned to face him slowly. They were sitting on opposite sides of the carriage, facing one-another but offset so that they could utilise the full stretch of leg-room available. Compared to the mail-coaches and crowded conveyances that Segundus had used on his way south, it was most luxurious.

Childermass looked at him and smiled.

“Three books, in fact, Mr Segundus. And if the lady is to be parted from any books, I will make sure she is paid the full worth of them. I always do”, he said, regarding Segundus with that air he had of being able to see through one’s eyes and into one’s soul. Segundus frowned a little more.

“Well. I certainly will not be helping you in this endeavour if she is not interested in selling, Mr Childermass.”

Childermass clicked his tongue and looked away again, saying only: “I would not ask it of you, Mr Segundus”.

And so they were in silence again.

The miles passed by, eaten up with ease by Davy's skill with the horses and the fine large wheels of the carriage. The light had faded and they were preparing to stop at an nearby coaching inn. They had written ahead to secure a room for the three of them, something Segundus had been embarrassed to learn, as there was no chance he could have afforded to reserve a room this way, and though he had tried to make an offer to contribute to the cost, Childermass had waved him away, explaining that as Mr Norrell was the one who wished to have Miss Austen's acquaintance, Mr Norrell would be happy to bear the expense.

Segundus didn't quite believe this, but he put his coin-purse back in his pocket anyway.

Davy retired first, having had the most tiring day of the three of them. The other two sat in the taproom long enough to give him time to get fairly to sleep, and to allow him some peace and quiet to do so.

All through dinner Mr Segundus had been thinking about how dreary and quiet a journey it had been so far, and how he could not bear the thought of it continuing so tomorrow. If nothing else, he didn’t want to meet with his friend Jane with a companion he had barely spoken with in tow, and to introduce him to her though he barely knew the man himself.

He sipped his beer and determined to make a start.

“Mr Childermass,” he said, looking across the table with a smile. It was a smile that, though Mr Segundus did not really know it, could have thawed a heart of ice. It was a smile that had gotten him out of sticky situations than he had not even realised he was in. It was a smile that had caused landlords to allow him an extra week’s time to pay the rent, it had caused coachmen to stop when moments before they had determined to press on and not pick up another passenger. It had gained him an extra bun in his bag of day-old bread from the baker’s, a further slice of pork in the package of cold meat he was picking up from the butcher’s. It had even charmed a few young ladies in its time, until they were put off by its owner’s pennilessness, obliviousness and obvious lack of inclination in that direction.

Into the full force of that smile Childermass looked up and raised his eyebrows.


	3. Chapter 3

Segundus wrinkled his brow, “You do not mean the Anabasis, do you? Xenophon’s Anabasis? We read that at school.”

“No indeed, though the title of this book is in reference to that work. Mr Norrell has not read it, since my master has not had the good fortune ever to own a copy, but he believes it to be a sort of parody, a very far-fetched tale of an escape from Faerie.”

“If it is as far-fetched as you say, what is his interest in it?”

Childermass paused to take a sip of his beer, and, presumably, considering his reply.

“Well,” he said, tilting his head back a little, “he takes an interest in magical books.”

Segundus snorted, “As well I know.”

Childermass only smiled, and didn’t seem offended or put-out by this, which Segundus was glad of since he hadn’t really meant to raise such a thorny subject. He continued:

“So it is a… what, a travelogue? That does not seem like it would fit into the list.” Here he took up the piece of paper on which Norrell’s tiny, spidery writing listed the “horrid” books that Miss Austen’s heroines were to read.

They had not come immediately to talking about the books that Norrell had sent Childermass in search of. Childermass had been very reticent at first. All he had initially told Segundus was that Norrell had come to learn that Miss Austen may be in possession of some texts that he was interested in. He suggested to Segundus that he understood that Mr Segundus was doing Mr Norrell a great favour. He said nothing of himself, and in fact had been rather infuriatingly close-mouthed about himself and his own feelings on the matter. For a sociable man like John Segundus, it was strange and disagreeable to be at a remove from his travelling companion this way.

Over the hour or so after dinner, he’d thus endeavoured to engage Childermass in conversation about the purpose of their journey and his feelings on it. He had spoken of himself at first, of the knowledge he had of _Prospero’s Archipelago_ , which, as we have already seen he had studied parts of at university. Childermass had not read the book himself, but seemed pleased enough to listen to Segundus opine on it, occasionally venturing to add some of the remarks he had heard Norrell make on the subject.

They discovered that not only had neither of them read any part of Navigation By Crow, but that while Childermass had only heard of it through the most obscure of references, Segundus had never heard of it at all. From there, the discussion had settled on Xenophon’s Notobasis.

“There may be some element of romance to it,” Childermass said, “I believe there is a fairy queen involved somewhere.”

Segundus narrowed his eyes. “You say Mr Norrell has not read this book. Have you read it, Mr Childermass?”

Childermass raised his eyebrows a little and his mouth did something strange that Segundus could only interpret as a smile.

“You are perceptive, Mr Segundus. In truth I have read only a part of the text in the original French, excerpted in another book. Mr Norrell was not interested in purchasing this book himself, but it was in my possession long enough for me to read it,” he said, putting down his mug and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

“Ah!” said Segundus, “You say the original French, so it is not originally a Greek tale?”

“The title is Greek, and indeed it concerns the actions of some Greek soldiers, but the earliest version I’m aware of is in French.”

Childermass seemed to be waiting for him to say something else, so Segundus, eager to draw Childermass out into more discussion of his reading of all the books that Norrell owned and that Segundus feared he would never see, said: “And this word, Notobasis- ”

“It is a thistle.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Notobasis,” Childermass repeated. “It is a thistle, from Egypt. Very sharp thorns. From what I have read it was the name that the fairy queen who provides the romantic element of the tale. The book that I have read did not focus much on this aspect, I will admit. Its author was more interested in the magical feats performed by the protagonist.”

Segundus was alight with curiosity. He entreated Childermass to tell him more on these magical feats. This Childermass did, though he regarded Segundus again with his head tilted back for a moment first.

While he was speaking, Segundus signalled to the innkeeper that they would like two more ales. He was in no hurry to retire.

When they eventually did decide to retire to their room, the fire had burned low, leaving the room a little chilly. Segundus looked over the room and discovered to his mortification that there was only one bed. Or rather, one real bed, and two beds that were nothing more than a thin mattress on the floor, covered with blankets. Davy was spark out in one of the pallet beds, snoring slightly.

He twisted his hat a little in his hands, beginning to speak at the same instant Childermass began also to say something:

“I see they have seen fit only to-”

“I shall give you your privacy, sir-”

They both stopped. Childermass inclined his head to Segundus: _go on._

“I mean only to say… ah, they have seen fit only to provide one bed,” he said, abashed.

“…yes,” said Childermass, after a pause, “That is what was arranged. One gentleman and two servants, that is what my master wrote in his letter to the innkeeper.” He spoke as if Segundus was being dense, or childlike.

Segundus’ embarrassment grew. He had quite forgotten to think of Childermass as a servant during their most interesting conversation. He found he couldn’t bear to simply take the bed as if it was his due.

“Oh, of course. Well, that is most… I mean, I should not like to assume. After all, it is your master who is bearing the cost of the journey. I should not take it at all ill if you should wish to-”

Childermass was looking at him rather as if he had grown a second head. Rather, he was looking at Segundus with his usual slightly sceptical, slightly mocking expression, but Segundus was beginning to feel as if he had grown a second head. Childermass spoke again:

“As I said, Mr Segundus, I shall give you your privacy to get ready for bed. I must step out for a few moments.” He stepped past Segundus and left the room, closing the door behind him. Segundus undressed for bed, performed his toilet quickly and climbed into the narrow bed. The warming pan was still warm, and it had taken the worst of the chill from the blankets. He looked over at Childermass’s bed on the floor, noticing that no warming pan had been provided, so instead of placing his on the floor, he got up again and slipped it beneath the blankets and the mattress pad. Back in bed, he sighed and closed his eyes. It was good to be in bed after a day of travelling, a hearty meal and a stimulating conversation.

He must have dozed, because the next thing he was aware of was the door opening and closing, and the bolt being slid across as Childermass came back into the room. He hazily listened to the noises the other man made as he crossed the room, took off his boots and undressed for bed. On the point of going back to sleep, Segundus heard the sound of covers being pulled back and then a silence that stretched out for several seconds. He had the impression that Childermass had stopped still for some reason. He was starting to think about opening his eyes in case something was wrong, when the sounds of covers moving resumed and Childermass presumably got into his own bed.

“Goodnight, Mr Childermass.” Segundus murmured, before turning over and falling deeply asleep.

The next day he detected – or so he thought – a distinct thawing of Childermass’s manner towards him. He was pleased, obviously engaging him in conversation had had the desired effect. They breakfasted early, Davy proclaiming that he had slept well, thanking them for allowing him some peace and quiet and departing to see that the horses were brought out to be harnessed.

Mr Segundus smiled at Childermass and enquired how he had slept. Childermass told Mr Segundus that he had slept excellently, that his bed had been perfectly comfortable and, he said, putting a little more emphasis on the last word, _warm_.

Segundus’s smile faltered a little. He felt he was being made fun of somehow, though Childermass was smiling slightly and his manner was a friendly as it had ever been.

They exited the inn and Childermass once again helped Mr Segundus into the carriage. The cushion was still in place and Segundus sat down on it, once again wonderingly vaguely if it was Norrell’s and if Norrell would be put out to know he was making use of it. He didn’t want to offer it to Childermass after the embarrassing moment he’d had with the bed.

Childermass hesitated for a moment with one foot on the carriage step, and then pulled himself up and inside. He didn’t sit down though, instead he flipped open the seat opposite Segundus, which Segundus observed with interest gave him access to a recess that contained papers, a couple of books and, strangely, four red cushions. He looked down at his cushion. It was blue.

Childermass rummaged in the recess and pulled out a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. He snapped the lid shut, turned and sat down, stretching his legs out to Segundus’s left. He handed Segundus the parcel, saying: “Has your friend Miss Austen had you read this? We’ve another good day’s travel ahead of us.”

Segundus untied the string, revealing the manuscript that Mr Norrell had been made to suffer through a few days before.

“Oh!” he said, surprised, “I had not realised that you had the whole manuscript! Of course I would be most interested to read…” He was already becoming distracted by the first few lines, but then he frowned and looked quizzically at Childermass.

“Is the lady aware that you have this? Would she give her consent to it being read in this form?”

Childermass laughed. “Do not worry, Mr Segundus, I have not been creeping into her room at night to steal her unfinished scribblings. This was sold to a Bath bookseller some six years ago, and I will in fact be returning it to him as part of this expedition. The bookseller was desirous to have some interested parties read the novel and give him their opinion as to whether it will sell, and I merely represented myself as one such interested party. I will give him my honest opinion and I would be glad to add yours to my report.”

He smiled at Segundus, and though his smile had never once saved him from difficulty, gained him an extra currant bun or caused any young ladies to fall in love with him (indeed the sort of young ladies who might fall in love with Childermass would prefer a scowl to a smile), it caused Segundus to smile back. Childermass continued, “And as my opinion is a positive one, it will only help your friend in her ambition to be published.”

Segundus tutted and turned back to the manuscript. “Please do not speak of ambition with her when you meet, she would be entirely mortified to think that anyone could accuse her of it.”

“Ambition is no bad thing,” Childermass replied, “Though lacking it yourself, you may think otherwise.”

But Segundus was already engrossed in the opening chapters of the life and times of Miss Austen's imaginative heroine, and did not attend to him.


	4. A Scholarly Interlude

Few topics cause anguish to historians of magical literature as much as discussions of missing works. As with the fossil record, there are clear eras, and, too often, traumatic boundaries between them. This record cannot seek to match the detail of U Eco's "Aedificium Aflame" or JFILB Acevedo's still incomplete "Library of Hexes” but does attempt to shine a light on a corner of English magic and magical literature. Specifically, the mentions within texts of other texts - many themselves mentioning other texts, until there is formed a net, or even a web. A bibliarachnia, if you will, in which is caught not only the intersections and references and patterns of learning, but also the gaps.

It was CL Dodgson who first described "The Norrell Wall", the point at which fortune and fate collide. Gilbert Norrell's library was infamous, as was his defense of it. Though he sat rarely for paintings, it was intermittently rumoured that in a preliminary sketch an unnamed artist had jotted the names of background texts, only for those sketches and then the artist to disappear. The flavour of the era sits heavily upon these portraits, in time of war men who husbanded secrets and arcane deals could not be certain to follow the same polestar as others.

Time and again references to magical works disappear in the era where Norrell was most active, as if his library were a labryinth no text could escape. A quote widely attributed to Christopher Drawlight has it that in Norrell's care: "would Hurtfew's library not be better named Lend-fewer?".

Dodgson compared that same library to a hole in which books fell endlessly, indexed physically, chronologically, and inaccessibly. He also (with characteristic whimsy) described the one-sided contests to acquire texts in sales as:

"Auctions for fun   
At which all but one   
Would as well quote the price of the leather  
For no matter the estimate  
They'd not have the best of it  
Defeated whatever the weather.  
  
Norrell's bottomless purse  
To others a curse  
Gave him any text he could choose  
For the rest of the field  
To his greed they must yield  
Naught to show but the wear to their shoes."   
  
It was JAA Joyce in his wide-ranging odyssey in search of magical texts in Dublin that more closely explored the mechanisms of Norrell's acquisition. Many magical historians had sown the seeds to explore 'gaps' in the Norrell Wall, but it was Joyce who brought them to bloom. In a series of essays ('Drawlight's Drawbridge' (1902), 'Lascelles To The Highest Bidder' (1903), and 'Admiralty for Two' (1904)) Joyce shone new light on the procedures of acquisition, but it was in exile in Zurich with access to other texts that he crafted 'Calling, Cards' (1908). With unprecedented access to various archives he was able to trace the movement of magical texts across Europe, and it was in that essay that he postulated that what obfuscated the fate of many texts was not them being built into the Norrell Wall, but Childermass extinction.

-excerpt from _Regency Minotaur:_ _The Hurtfew Labyrinth and the Norrell Wall_ by Hubert PF d’Ecosse _,_ 2006

Even as industrial might and organisation were brought to bear space was carved to allow more ingenious efforts. It was the Admiralty that found the first practical uses for English magic, but it was the Army's 62nd (Royal American) Regiment that gave that English magic practical support.

The 5th battalion, raised on the Isles of Barbados and Wight, was notable not only to Sir Arthur Wellesley as "useful, active, and brave". In an era where the regularisation of irregular infantry gave us the term guerrilla, and harbinger of a variety of independent units from the Freikorps to the Commandoes to the various Special Services, the 5th of the 62nd still stand out. Daring raids across the peninsula in search of artefacts and texts, a reputation for violence and a piratical bent supported not only by active Letters of Marque but basket-hilted bayonets, and a uniform disregard for uniform gave the men of the unit a swagger matched only by their achievements. It is not the place of this work to look at the exploits of the unit (see instead "Ten Rounds To The Dozen" (E. Abbot), or "Don Juans & Dragoons" (Arneson et al)), but to focus on the infrastructure that they brought about.

A cottage industry sprang into being at Channel ports to receive, catalogue, and exploit the material these free-ranging units brought back. Intelligence derived from this was one of the project's great strengths, and it was this, not the charisma of the troops that saw the wisdom of its commissioners rewarded. The odd constitution of the enterprise was matched by its by-blows - at least one smuggling operation was kept afloat by the funds and it was the appositely named Robin Hood's Bay that came to be one of the centres of this shadowy parallel. Adventures that return magical treasures will inevitably attract thieves.

-excerpt from _Britain Against Napoleon: The Organisation of Victory 1793-1815_ by Roger Knight _,_ 2013

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Roger Knight book is real, and very good, but doesn't really talk about English magic unfortunately.


	5. Chapter 5

After several hours engrossed in his reading, Segundus became aware that he had abandoned his conversational plans entirely. He looked up at Childermass suddenly, seeing that he was smiling a little to himself as he looked out of the carriage window at the Somerset countryside. Segundus couldn’t help but think to himself that this was what the rogue had planned – to divert Segundus with a novel so that he might be spared further chatter. He remembered Childermass’s pleasant attitude earlier that morning and dismissed the thought as uncharitable. He shifted himself a little on his cushion, accidentally brushing his ankle against Childermass’s in the process, and Childermass turned to look at him.

“You mean to tell me that Norrell read this? All of it?” Segundus asked. Childermass laughed a little and replied:

“Yes, sir, cover to cover, so to speak.”

“And what was his opinion?” Segundus asked a little breathlessly. Making Childermass laugh was slightly intoxicating and he wondered if the inside of the carriage had become somewhat airless, so lightheaded did he feel. “I really must know; I cannot think that this would be to his taste!”

“No, he did not appreciate it very much, I will admit. He was up reading all night, and when I came in-” Childermass abruptly stopped. His expression changed, became much more guarded and serious.

“He is more interested in scholarly works. And rightly so, as he is the foremost magician of the age.” he said simply.

Segundus snorted, a little stung by the implied rebuke. “Oh,” he said, “Texts that he hoards in that library of his.” He was fairly sure that on his one visit to Hurtfew he had seen a great many magical books there, although he would not have been able to tell you which.

“Yes,” was all the reply he received. He thumped the manuscript bundle down onto the seat next to him, apparently startling Childermass a little.

“Books he hoards away like a dragon in its cavern, an endeavour that you are apparently all too happy to aid him in. I wonder at it, I do. You are not a stupid man, or a servile one. What is it in Norrell’s actions that you see as so very noble? You cannot think this is moral.”

“Moral? I do not much care one way or another about morality.” Childermass said scornfully. “I am Mr Norrell’s servant, Mr Segundus. I hope I do my duty by him.”

Segundus was equal parts abashed and furious. He _would_ keep forgetting that Childermass was a servant and so not free to follow his own course. Being in the presence of a man who had, at his master’s bidding, thwarted Segundus so many times and even now was using him to some unknown end was infuriating, all the more so because Segundus had actually begun to like him, to be interested in his opinion and to want to know him better.

Childermass just continued to look at him, looking slightly superior despite his words. Segundus dearly wished he could wipe that look off his face. Segundus was angry with Norrell, he knew, but Childermass seemed so determined to act as Norrell’s visible face in the world, a limb with which Norrell could inflict destruction without in actuality lifting a finger, that Segundus couldn’t help but be angry with Childermass too. He huffed and looked out his own window. Childermass was _still_ looking at him.

After a moment of silence, Childermass spoke.

“I hope I do my duty by my master and by English magic, and by my king.” His voice was slightly muffled as he had turned to face away from Segundus once more. Segundus glanced at him sharply. There was a touch of colour in Childermass’s cheeks. He looked altogether as if he hadn’t quite meant to say that.

Segundus deflated. “Forgive me, Childermass,” he said, letting out a long breath. “You are quite right to be angry with me for chastising you. I may as well blame you for the actions of the Raven King.”

They continued in silence for a while.

“At any rate,” said Segundus eventually, his good humour returning a little, “Norrell cannot be a dragon in truth, sleeping atop his hoard. His books would be quite squashed.”

Childermass said nothing, but Segundus sensed a smile had appeared on his turned-away face.

Thinking to say something complimentary about Norrell and so be conciliatory, Segundus cast around for anything he could say in the man’s favour. His eyes lit on the comfortable blue cushion he sat on, and so he said:

“Judging by his fine taste in cushions, he would prefer not to sleep atop anything so uncomfortable as a library.” He wiggled a little in his seat to make clearer his point about the cushion. Childermass turned his head, frankly staring at Segundus, seemingly amused and perplexed in equal measure.

“That is not Mr Norrell’s cushion,” he said eventually. “He would not tolerate another gentleman sitting on his cushions. Mr Norrell’s cushions are red.” He tapped the seat next to him, clearly indicating the four red cushions stored beneath.

“Oh!” said Segundus, a little startled, though he was not sure why. “Then this cushion- that is to say- this cushion was provided for my comfort?”

“Yes, sir. I purchased it for this very journey yesterday morning.” Childermass was once again making that face that suggested he had not quite meant to say this but that he was interested to know the result now that he had.

Segundus was blushing again, he could feel it, which was ridiculous. Of course Childermass would provide a cushion for a gentleman he was accompanying, if what he was used to was a gentleman who required cushions.

It was just that, Segundus being so accustomed to travelling in discomfort, and with no means to alleviate it most of the time, it was strangely affecting to have his comfort considered in this way. He stammered a thank-you and looked down at his lap.

“You are most welcome, Mr Segundus.” Said Childermass. There was a strange tension in the air now, as if the space inside the carriage had become charged with electricity. Segundus didn’t want to look up, to catch Childermass’s eye. He did so anyway.

Childermass was not even looking at him. He was looking straight ahead, at the boards of the carriage to the left of Segundus’s face. He spoke, his tone calculatedly casual:

“You are an odd sort of gentleman, Mr Segundus, and an odder magician.”

Segundus said nothing, not sure whether he was being insulted or complimented.

“It is a truism that all magicians lie, but I have found you to be the exception that proves the rule,” he said softly, in a flat, careful tone, “I may be an unsavoury character myself, but I am honest in my own way and I must admit that I am sorry to have held such a prejudice about you, Mr Segundus.”

Segundus said nothing of his own prejudices regarding Childermass (villain of a windswept moor, mysterious shadow under a vaulted cathedral roof, mysterious harbinger of doom and excitement) but only blushed deeper and thanked him again.

Childermass looked like he might say more, but at that moment Davy reigned the horses in and began to turn the carriage off the road and into the yard of the in where they were to take their luncheon.

A hearty meal and a glass or two of wine did its work in dispelling the strange, charged atmosphere. Segundus took the opportunity to speak to Davy a little, learning of his of his family and his interests, not many of which he shared with Segundus. Still, Segundus was pleased to have conversed a little with the man. He did not like to think that Davy thought him ungrateful for his good work with the horses and the quick time they were making on the road. Childermass mostly smoked his pipe and stared darkly into his drink.

After they climbed back into the carriage, Segundus was feeling rather drowsy after his meal. He murmured an apology to Childermass and declared that he intended to have forty winks. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes, the jolting of the carriage starting to move carrying him off into a doze.

About twenty minutes later he woke to the feeling of magic happening. He wasn’t at all sure how he could know this with any certainty, but he kept his eyes closed and, half-asleep still, tried to follow the lines of the magic to determine what it was he was sensing.

It was a precise sort of magic. There was a kind of web in the air, some strands tight and strong, some strands hazier and more insubstantial. These lines were being spun, woven, drawn together and then teased apart. Something was being sought, ordered, set down as if in a copy book.

He opened his eyes to see exactly that: Childermass was writing something down in a small buff-coloured copy book using a stubby pen dipped into a tiny travel-sized bottle of ink. In the same hand that he held the book he also held what appeared to be a thick bundle of scruffy pieces of card.

“Was there magic being done?” Segundus asked, yawning a little. “What could it have been?”

Childermass did not look up, saying only: “I suppose it is no great surprise that a magician should dream of magic.”

He wrapped book, pen and ink bottle in a piece of oiled cloth and secreted it within an inner pocket of his coat.

“No… it was-” Segundus shook his head to clear it. “Yes, I suppose it must have been a dream.”

He apologised to Childermass for being so rude as to sleep, and Childermass waved off his apology with a careless hand.

They fell back into the easier conversation of the day before, with the new joy of being able to discuss Miss Austen’s book. To John Segundus’s shock and delight, Childermass was well-read not only in magical texts, but in the fashionable and romantic novels of the age. It was not, of course, that Mr Segundus was a _reader of novels_ per se, it was just that reading was a cheap and plentiful source of entertainment for a gentleman of small means, with well-thumbed copies available to be borrowed for free from generous landladies and friendly maidservants. If it caused his imagination to run away with itself when encountering long-haired miscreants in battered top-hats, and if it made him blush a little to think of Childermass reading of and reacting to the dramatic and romantic situations, well, that was his business and no-one else’s.

“I make it my business to know what ordinary folk are talking about, Mr Segundus. It is no great difficulty for me to read a chapter or two before bed most evenings.”

“Oh, I wish I had your candle budget,” said Segundus wistfully. “In these winter months it’s all I can do to read a few pages by firelight.”

“My master does not stint,” Childermass allowed.

Segundus was once more reminded of the strange stratification that called Mr Segundus a gentleman, for all that he could not afford candles to read by or cushions to travel on, and Childermass a servant, for all that he was one of the best-read and most intelligent men Segundus had ever had the pleasure of speaking with.

“We shall be in Bath by dinner time, Mr Segundus,” Childermass said, breaking his reverie.

Segundus smiled. “Oh, and we are to meet dear Miss Austen tomorrow for tea! I do hope the two of you will get on.”

Childermass only smiled as if to say: _we shall see._


	6. Chapter 6

Their arrival in Bath was not a grand one. For all that Mr Norrell’s carriage was the most elegant conveyance Segundus had travelled in for many a year, it was nothing to the gigs, traps, barouches and other sundry smart conveyances of Bath. They found their way to their lodging-house, taken for two days in a very unfashionable part of town, but clean enough and consisting of two rooms with two narrow beds in each.

Miss Austen was staying with a friend in a slight less unfashionable part of Bath, a scant five minutes’ walk from their rooms, and since they had no intention of being driven about like fashionable gentlemen Childermass advised Davey that, upon ensuring that the horses were well-stabled, he had his freedom of the town until their appointed leaving time two days hence. Segundus observed this with interest, seeing the genuine smile and real respect with which Davey regarded Childermass, and the friendly pat on the shoulder that Childermass gave the other man as he turned towards the stables.

Childermass turned to Segundus and in so doing caught him looking. Segundus smiled. They went together into the lodging house, greeting the landlady and then climbing the creaking stairs to their rooms. They were at the top of the house, with one room looking out towards the street and the other over the rather drab back ends of the houses behind. Childermass took a look through each door in turn, then held the door of the street-facing room open for Segundus, making a half-bow as he gestured for Segundus to enter the rather better-lit of the two rooms. Segundus, remembering his embarrassment the night before, did not argue and simply ducked his head a little at Childermass and sidled into the room with his valise clutched in both hands.

Half an hour later he had washed, changed his neck-cloth and stockings, aired out his waistcoat and run his wet hands through his hair a few times to try to tame it a little. Looking in the mirror, he mused on the grey that was slowly but surely creeping in, year after year. It had started appearing shortly after his 28th birthday, and a decade later it was making itself quite at home. He would admit, if pressed, to having a little vanity about his hair. Grey or no, even as he approached his 40th birthday it was still thick and voluminous, and it had been counted his best feature when he was a young man who attended the kind of soirees at which “best features” were discussed. As he dried his hands his thoughts drifted to Childermass’s hair. _He_ had no grey at all, for all he seemed to have five years at least on Segundus. _His_ hair would certainly not be tamed by a few passes with wet hands.

A knock on the door startled Segundus out of this reverie and he realised he had been standing, holding the damp towel in his hands, staring at a point somewhere between the end of his nose and the skirting board for some minutes.

“Come in!” he called, throwing the towel down and turning to the door. It opened to reveal Childermass, holding a letter in his hands. He had also changed his clothes, though only someone who had spent the last 8 hours in close quarters with the man could have told the difference between the waistcoat he wore now and the one that he had had on that morning. His hair, Segundus noted with a little colour in his cheeks, had in fact been neatened, pulled back into a queue and tucked behind his ears.

He held the letter out to Segundus, who took it curiously and tore it open.

“Oh! It is from Miss Austen. Did this arrive just now?” he asked, unfolding the short missive and looking at Childermass over the top of it.  
  
“No sir, it awaited us. Whatever Mr Norrell suspects of her, divination magic is surely not one of her talents.” Childermass said, with that sideways twist in his mouth that Segundus was becoming as pleased to receive as if it had been a beaming grin. He looked down at the letter and began to read it, short as it was. His eyes, already very large, became larger still and he fixed that wide-eyed gaze on Childermass once more.

“A party?” he said aloud, which was not very comprehensible. Childermass raised an eyebrow quizzically.

“She mentions a party, Mr Childermass! She writes - I shall read - she writes: ‘... and dearest John, I am looking forward very much to your company. I know that you and your friend will be valuable additions to our party tomorrow’. What can she mean? It is not usual to refer to a visit for tea as a party, is it?”

“It could be that we have made a mistake. We did leave very early in the morning. Perhaps you missed a further letter from your friend?” Childermass replied. “It is no matter, however. I myself have ...friends in Bath who will be able to find out for me whether there is to be a soiree at the address we are to visit tomorrow. All will be well; we will know the lie of the land by the time we have found an alehouse to eat our dinner in.”

Segundus was only slightly comforted (and intrigued to know more about Childermass’s ‘friends in Bath’). Although naturally friendly and much inclined to conversation and sociability, he did not like to be put in the position of expecting a quiet afternoon drinking tea with two individuals whose society he enjoyed, but in fact to be facing a potentially-raucous evening with who-knew how many strangers. As well as this, he was most uncomfortable with how he was going to introduce Childermass socially to this crowd. He knew that Miss Austen, being gentle-but-pecunious (much as Segundus was), hardly mixed in the kind of social circles that would be embarrassed to even be seen speaking to a man of Childermass’s station, but he knew that bringing a “man-of-business” to a party with ladies and gentlemen would not really be seen as the done thing.

He sighed. They went to dinner. Segundus was sent into the alehouse alone to secure a seat and order the food, and after fifteen minutes spent nervously sipping his drink, Childermass slid onto the bench opposite him with a smile.

“There is indeed to be a soiree at the house tomorrow, Mr Segundus. We are expected at 7 o’clock, rather later than tea-time.” He made that face at Segundus that said: _I know something that will surprise you and I am deciding whether to share it._ Segundus looked back at him with his eyebrows raised, indicating that he should go on.  
  
“It is to be a literary affair. We are expected in costume.” Childermass said.

Segundus’s jaw fell open. “Costume?” he said, clenching his elegant hands around his mug. “Disguise, you mean? Literary disguise?”

“Exactly, Mr Segundus. A good thing Miss Austen thought to write you a welcome note, or we would have been out of place, arriving at 4 o’clock dressed only as ourselves.”

Segundus was silent for a moment. He was simultaneously alarmed and excited. To attend a literary soiree with (no-doubt) a great many people cleverer than himself and with better conversation, wearing a costume cobbled together at no notice and meant to represent only-God-knew who or what, was alarming, but it would make introductions much easier if he could introduce Childermass as Montoni or Orsino or some other fictional rogue. Besides, literary types were likely to be Bohemian enough to relish the novelty of a ragged gentleman and his roguish companion turning up to their soiree.

“Yes, Mr Childermass.” He said faintly. “A very good thing indeed!”

They set to, the stew and potatoes provided by the alehouse occupying their attention for some minutes. When they were done, Mr Segundus (having nervously sunk one pint while waiting for Childermass and made significant headway on his second) was feeling talkative again.

“Now, Mr Childermass, the task that lies before us is no small one! We must have costumes. With this little notice I despair of managing to portray any specific individual, but I’m sure between us we shall be able to make a good showing.”

“Indeed, Mr Segundus. In fact I have no fear upon my own account. I know precisely what I shall wear and so I shall be able to bend all of my ingenuity towards devising a suitable costume for you.”

They talked long into the evening of just that, and, with much laughter, they hit upon an idea that, deeper in his cups than he had meant to be, Segundus thought both original and hilarious. The walk back to the lodging house was not long but Segundus was worn-out by the time he had climbed the stairs.

He paused at his door as Childermass opened the one opposite. He could hear Davey snoring within, and felt a moment’s guilt that they had not asked him to dine with them. Childermass caught the look and whispered:

“Do not fret. He spent the evening in good company. He is a sociable fellow and doesn’t lack for companionship when he wants it.”

Segundus, once again embarrassed on the point of sleep by being an open book that Childermass could apparently read every word of, simply wished him a good night and slipped into his room.

Childermass stood for a moment, looking at the closed door, before retiring for the night himself.


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning Segundus awoke early to light streaming into his room and the noise of footsteps, hoofbeats and carriage wheels sounding from outside. He did not feel at his most perspicacious, which he put down to too much beer on top of too little food and rest the day before. He poured himself a glass of water from his carafe and rose to greet the day.

After washing and dressing, he stepped out of his room and saw that the door to Childermass and Davey’s room was closed. He wasn’t sure if they would be awake – servants would be used to awakening early, but perhaps they were taking this chance to sleep longer. He determined not to wake them and descended the stairs into the street. He was a little at a loss. Unlike Childermass he did not have any friends in Bath (not at this early remove, at any rate), and he had little inclination to attend fashionable locations in his mended coat and shabby cuffs. Even in this unfashionable enclave at this early hour there were a great many people on the streets already, and, so as not to appear to be loitering, he put on his hat and set off on a walk. Now, this was something he was good at, having had many occasions in his life to walk and even more necessity of doing so, and having an excellent sense of direction (when not under the influence of magic), he was very seldom lost.

He strolled down one street, then turned left, strolled up another. It was looking to be a fine day. He took in the lovely buildings of Bath, the river. He began to think of heading back to the lodging-house to wake Childermass and suggest they breakfast somewhere. He retraced his steps and climbed the creaky stairs once again, hesitating only briefly before knocking on the door opposite his own.

After some moments Davey opened it, sleepy-eyed and yawning. He touched his head in a hat-doffing gesture and said: “Good morning, sir. Was there anything you needed?”

“Oh, good morning Davey. I hope you slept well?” Segundus replied.

“Oh, yes sir, I did, very well.”

“I am glad. I was thinking of breakfast, should you and Mr Childermass wish to join me..?”

“Gladly, sir. But Mr Childermass is not here. He was up and out before dawn. Thought I’d dreamed it, till I woke up and saw his bed made.”

Segundus allowed Davey to retreat back into his room to finish dressing. He was most puzzled. Here he had thought he had risen early, only to find that Childermass had been out and about on some secret business of his own. “Friends in Bath”, indeed.

He and Davey breakfasted in the lodging house and passed a pleasant morning together. If Davey found it awkward to be invited to breakfast with a gentleman (in truth Segundus would not have embarrassed him so if he hadn’t thought that Childermass would be joining them), he was soon drawn out of himself by the pleasant conversation that Segundus was at pains to provide. Engrossed in this endeavour, Segundus wasn’t allowed much leisure to think about Childermass and his mysterious behaviour.

Afterwards he left the coachman to his own devices and embarked on a walk around Bath. He walked along the river, he enjoyed a look at the Roman baths, he looked in the windows of shops and he took tea in a tea room, since he had not been allowed to pay for his share of the accommodation and so had a few more coins in his pocket than he had expected to.

Going on 4, the time he had, at this time yesterday, expected to be attending upon Miss Austen for nothing more exciting than tea and the discussion of some magical books, he returned to the lodging house to wash and to think of preparing his costume. This was the other thing he had deliberately not been thinking about. The costume, that had seemed so ingenious and witty the night before, seemed showy and ridiculous now. But what else could he do? If he turned up in his own clothes he would be out of place. What could he say, that he was dressed as a country parson, the kind of character who was destined to be abandoned by the heroine in the fifth chapter in favour of some wild romantic hero?

He was getting into a gloomy state of mind. He ascended the stairs, creaking all the way, and went back into his room, very pointedly not looking at the other door as he passed it. He sat on the bed and rubbed the back of his neck. He needed Childermass’s help with this costume, but he had not the slightest idea where he might find him. He sighed.

There was a knock on the door. He leaped up to open it, and there before him stood the very wild romantic hero he had been unconsciously picturing.

“Good afternoon, Mr Segundus,” he pronounced. “I trust you have had a pleasant day?”

“Oh, yes, I…” Segundus was strangely lost for words.

“You are wondering where I have been, sir.” Childermass continued, eyeing Segundus in a knowing way and once again displaying his uncanny ability to read Segundus’s mind.

“Not at all!” lied Segundus valiantly. “Your business is your own. Did you meet with your friends?”

“I did indeed,” said Childermass, stepping past Segundus into the room, “and you need not think yourself slighted that I did not invite you to meet them also. Some of my friends are… rather low people, and you would not delight in their company as I will no doubt delight in the company of your friend, Miss Austen.” His quick eye took in the neatly made bed and the couple of books placed neatly beside the candle on the bedside table.

“I do not feel in the least slighted, I assure you, your friends are your own and I would not presume. Davey and I enjoyed a most congenial breakfast, and I am used to entertaining myself,” said Segundus, “and I quite believe you in regard to your friends, I am sure.”

Childermass looked as though he didn’t quite believe Segundus in turn, but he did not venture to contradict him.

“Now, the matter of your get-up for this evening-” he began.

“Ah, but you must show me yours first!” interrupted Segundus. “We have quite decided upon mine, but I have been most curious all day to find out what you are planning.”

Only now did Segundus see that Childermass was carrying a bolt of cloth. Of course, this would be a necessary element of the planned outfit, but in truth Segundus had thought a bedsheet from the lodging-house would do for their purposes.

Childermass shook out and spread the white fabric over the end of the unused bed. It was in fact a bedsheet, but far larger and finer than anything the lodging-house could have provided.

“My goodness, Childermass, where did you get that fine sheet? Do you mean me to use this tonight? I shall be quite frightened of spilling wine upon it.” he said as he fingered the smooth cotton and felt the weight of it in his hands.

“It came from the same place as the cushions, Mr Segundus.” Childermass said with an amused look.

“The carriage, you mean? Whyever would such a thing be kept in Mr Norrell’s carriage?” Segundus asked. Childermass had stepped rather close to him and was looking him up and down with an appraising air, before taking the sheet in hand and holding it up against Segundus’s narrow frame.

“It is to your credit that you do not think of it, sir, but Mr Norrell is not a man who will sleep on unfamiliar sheets willingly,” he said, draping the sheet over Segundus’s left shoulder and walking around him to wrap the fabric around his waist, “I have made up many a bed in many an inn using this sheet, and the fine wool blanket, and the feather pillow-“ he said this last word rather sharply as he pulled the fabric tight around Segundus’s waist and draped it once more over his left shoulder. A few more tucks and he stood back, eyebrows raised in approval.

“There, now, Senator Segundus has been summoned and is with us! A feat of magic that even my fastidious master could not aspire to.” he said, grasping Segundus by the shoulders and turning him to admire his reflection in the window, it being almost dark enough outside now to act as a mirror. Standing before him was- well, was himself, with his right jacket sleeve incongruously poking out of a very reasonable facsimile of ancient Roman dress.

Segundus gasped, partly from his appearance in the glass but, truth be told, more from the fact that it seemed he had forgotten to breathe for the last several minutes.

He turned this way and that, admiring the effect.

“It looks wonderful, Mr Childermass!” he said. “Of course, I will have to take off my jacket and waistcoat, but my shirt and breeches will do very well underneath and- oh!” He grasped at the fabric as it started to slip. “Dear me, I shall have to be very careful.”

Childermass reached over to free him from the makeshift toga. “I shall wind it more carefully before we leave. Now, I take my leave to prepare myself. I believe you shall-” he paused. “I believe you shall be amused by the effect.”

He handed Segundus the bundled sheet and left the room rather quickly.

When the door was closed, Segundus gave himself a full-body shake and began to unbutton his waistcoat.

When he was washed he changed into his best breeches, his freshest pair of white stockings and his clean shirt. He was just on the point of fretting that his white stockings and leather shoes would look rather silly poking out from under the toga when there was a knock at the door.

Still looking at his feet, he answered it distractedly and took some seconds to perceive the fine shining boots standing opposite.

He looked up slowly, over snow-white breeches, a dark blue coat with bright gold buttons, an equally vibrantly snowy cravat and up to a face framed below with a high stiff collar and above with dark locks of hair hanging loose of any tie. He had a length of blue ribbon wound around one wrist. He wore nothing on his head, but carried a bicorn hat under his arm. In his other hand he held, rather ridiculously, a pair of leather sandals straight from a painting of John the Baptist or Christ on the cross. So seized was Segundus with the idea that an illustration from a religious pamphlet had been forcibly unshod that for a moment he looked for the mud of Jordan or the blood of Golgotha, but of course they had been cleaned.

He became aware that he was staring. He felt suddenly half-dressed, standing there in his shirtsleeves. The look on Childermass’s face was _not_ embarrassment, it was _not_ sheepishness, and it was not even amusement at Segundus’s face. It was an expression Segundus had never seen before, and, vexingly, he could not for the life of him read it.

“I had been worrying about my shoes,” he said suddenly, “but I see you have thought of that, as well.”

He stepped backwards and gestured for Childermass to come in. Childermass did so. Segundus closed the door. Childermass glanced once more at the appointments of the room, the candle, the books, the toga-sheet that Segundus had folded neatly and draped over the other bed. His glance flicked back to Segundus once more.

“Well, sir?” he said eventually. “What do you think? Would they recognise me in Hanover square?”

“No, indeed!” Segundus replied. “If I had not spent two days and two nights in your company I do not think I would have recognised you when you knocked on my door just now. You look splendid, Mr Childermass. Where on Earth did you find such a get-up?”

Talking of his own accomplishments was clearly very safe ground for Childermass and his manner became easier at once.

“One of my friends in Bristol is a sailor and owed me a favour. I decided this was as good a time as any to allow him to make good on it.” he said.

“Oh, I hope that you do not come to regret spending a favour on a silly party, Mr Childermass!” said Segundus, abashed, then he continued: “Bristol, you say? My goodness, have you been as far as Bristol today? Are you not worn out? What can you have been doing there?”

“You are all thoughtfulness, as ever, Mr Segundus.” was all that Childermass replied, handing Segundus the sandals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next are brought to you by the soundtrack for the new adaptation of Emma (which is a wonderful movie and well worth seeing) - especially the tracks "The Game of Cards", "Queen Bee" and "Mr Turner's Waltz", the song "Love Story" by Taylor Swift, the BBC Pride and Prejudice and Emma series, the Audible adaptation of Northanger Abbey and the wonderful encouragement of beautifulsoup and touchmytardis.
> 
> And the people who've commented. You make me go aaaaaa and have to flap my hands in joy every time you do.


	8. Scholarly Interlude the Second

From "Callimachus' Later Losses" by Andrea Tiloryth

Navigation By Crow

Few descriptions of the work exist, but each provides details from which some conjecture can be made.

Perhaps the most notable features relate to the binding rather than the text. The book is (or was) of square aspect, perhaps a handspan a side, bound in a dark leather. A border chased with dancing crows was embossed on both front and back, though descriptions conflict as to their arrangement. Consistently the work is described as being punched through with an array of holes, seven by seven. The work is believed to have had 343 pages which is seven by seven by seven.

It is unclear how the text was set around these holes. To reconcile differences it has been assumed that the punctures in the more solid cover were square, while those through the pages were circular. The more intriguing aspect is that the pages are not of consistent shape, though how this was achieved remains a mystery. It has been suggested that when cut from quarto some pages were halved and folded over or otherwise segmented rather than identical.

It is known that each page (or at least when not unfolded) carried fourteen lines, set in seven couplets. The text is in prose, though again there is some discrepancy between descriptions, and a more poetic heptameter may have been the case. Inevitably there has been the suggestion that there are seven editions, though there is only even weak evidence for one or two copies.

Two opening lines are given -

"Know, friend, that to go by crow

As thread in weave straight lines go"

or

"Black-pinioned navigator, raven, king-sped in flight,

Come pass, thy wisdom well-won, and to this journey bring light"

In either case, it seems that there are two modes by which the text can be read. The first is conventionally, oddities in binding aside. If read 'in order' the text is characterised as an epic, even within the constraint of a word count some third that of Gilgamesh, but perhaps three times that of Beowulf. These comparisons are not idle, not least because the author is unknown.

Sources conflict even as to the number of protagonists. It has been suggested that the work as a single piece reflects an almost kaleidoscopic journey of a single entity, though described on the first page as a 'champion' of some kind the seemingly ageless figure bears a near endless variety of guises while maintaining some eternal core. JJ Campbell is known to have toyed with the title "The Hexahecatontetracontahexahedral Hero" before he considered its magnitude. Warwick Colvin Jr has repeatedly argued that there are two heroes, who, though near-identically named, personify 'order' and 'disorder'. In either case the text covers seemingly minor events across a massive sweep of time and space, with references that seem to tie to "locations diverse from Aegypt to Antarctica".

While most catalogue entries focus on elements of binding, provenance, speculation as to authorship, there are a succession of mentions within the text's biblarachnia that explore the 'story'. There is a suggestion that it covers a grand alliance or compact or a union of houses, a romance or a folie a deux. There is certainly a journey, one punctuated by the presence of a cornucopia of corvids. It has fantastical elements, the geographies it mentions cannot be reconciled with human experience. Its age is uncertain too, the first reference to it as a text in one piece as discussed here is c. 1535.

Some readers focused on elements that presage not just the Gothic but the grand-guignol. A forest whose branches are hung with the flayed skins of the dead ("crimson copse, the heartwine-stained wood") and the palace intrigues of an unseemly court ("bequested castle, riddled in glass") produce even in fragments high drama. The two are separated by the 'Black Forest', where "wood claws of ravens grab at the clouds themselves".

The mirrored duels discussed by Gibbons et al in "Only In Straight Lines" on pages 343 and 344 are as stark in their parallels as their contrasts. The inland moor and the desert island are inversions of each other, the glass beads of the unfathomable game and the mire of the holmgang, it is fortunate that at least one chronicler of the text was contemporary with horology that the intricacies of 'Navigation By Crow' could be compared to the "inky sweep of a blind man's clock".

What marks the text for scholars of magic, however, is the function of those holes. A thread run through any combination of those holes will produce, if not a different text, then a different path through the text. One where reversions and regressions and repetitions within the text take on new meanings. Much has been made of the numbers of the book, but roughly contemporary to one of the last sightings of the text is a calculation on all the margins of a bill of lading from the Admiralty at Bristol.

In a hand perhaps as neat as cramped, 2 is multiplied to the 49th power. That gives a number almost too large to express in words.

562,949,953,421,312

Further calculations in the same hand multiple seventy-eight by seventy-seven by seventy-six and so forth, until twelve numbers have been multiplied. You may have predicted that this would seem to relate to the Trionfi/Tarot. At the eighth card the total potential combinations are

945,378,254,620,800

This is five thirds or so the total number of potential combinations from the array of 'Navigation By Crow', and it is assumed that you are not the only one to see numerological parallels in the sums involved.

One, and only one, source that discusses the work mentions a "curry-case". It also makes reference to a string of beads roughly spherical in aspect, sized it would seem to be held between the covers. The 'currying' is believed not to be transport but an act of combing. In a random configuration brought about by brushing the spaces would each take a needle or not, allowing a thread to be pulled through to create a new 'reading' for the text.

Similarly, a lone voice has posited another way to read Navigation By Crow. In a wide-ranging survey J O'Barr established that in each excerpt of the text one of a series of words or their cognates was likely to appear. King (Emperor, Ruler), road (path, quest), crow (raven, rook, void-wing, carrion-taster, &c), and so forth. The suggestion is that a thread or string run through the holes denoted by each of these would create a map - though how this arcane geometry could be related to anything is uncertain.

\---

From: "Bell Book & Scandal: English Magic, Canon, and Controversy" by Roberta McAndrew

Byron's 'English Bards & Scotch Reviewers', initially published anonymously, was revised and expanded for its second edition, also of 1809. Within his papers of the John Murray archive are a series of unused stanzas - Byron's spiteful 'satire', described most aptly as 'Juvenalia', at one point included several publishers and notable collectors among its targets. The excision appears not only to have been on grounds of brevity [1] but a rare example of economic self-preservation.

A reference to eventual publisher James Cawthorn (d. 1833) highlights the house's lack of binding for its works, relative poverty, its address on Cockspur Street and the elevation of its offices, and a barely occluded reference to his name and namesake (James Cawthorn(e) 1719-61 was noted both for his imitative works and mockery of his period's fancy for Chinoiserie).

"Spineless Spiniensis, crows on the shelf

Unclad in plate as the Attics themself

'Twas ne'er a page consid'r'd to seem

An echo of Khrysos in inky gleam"

Arden, 2nd Baron Alvanley is known to have remarked of the anonymous first edition that "howsoever clever the author may be it's all, I'm afraid, just more Greek to me". Once Byron was revealed as author Alvanley is suggested to have asked if it was written with a "quill taken from an iron crow?" [2]

In at least one fragment within the Murray archive is a reference to Robert Hobyln MP, whose notoriety as a collector of texts clearly lasted some half a century beyond his death, though it would appear that Byron knew neither of the posthumous sale nor destruction by fire of the remnant, instead supposing that "Flourishing Christian by Empusae shod / rests in his barrow with books by the hod".[3]

For students of the history of English Magic of more interest are 24 lines among the excised sections. These make reference not only to a known collector of texts but to an apparent cottage industry of charlatans seeking to sell allegedly magical works. It is not known if any of these were successful, but the fact that Byron (no stranger to conflic) considered embedding a warning in a work where he challenged both Wordsworth and Coleridge is in and of itself notable.

"In dusty corners, poesy thirsts unslaked

May, as Arachne, weave panels mistaked

With all else squander'd, a debtor's armour

May be spun from work relabel'd grimoire

Beware temptation, who'd spin fabled wealth

E'en Aegeus' son relied upon stealth

Anonymous, on his Cretan venture

His identity he sought to censor

Heorot's chronicl'r unnamed by time

Would the bochord know, 'neath centennial rime

Storied minotaur unravelled by clew

Dragon of Dishforth would rather hurt few

Many's the text by mysterious ways

That's found now unfound in literal maze

Impish personation, history warns

Draws wages, not Aegis, of monstrous horns

Prints shall not pauper to prosper befall

Feats counter to fate the forger to fall

Hephaestus no foot wrong laboured in vain

Narcissus reflects not 'pon flimsy tain

Mirror'd in optimism scribes may see

The blessing of Dolos and Apate

To prosper? O, no, that is not their fate

These deeds will not profit nor elevate

Confidence will not girdle their tricks

Instead gain the gaze of unkindly Nyx"

[1] The full work's title would it seem have been 'English Bards & Scotch Reviewers / Pressmen, profits, and more the fewers')

[2] Crow-bar

[3] Hobyln's fortune was made in copper, and the Empusae though shape-shifters had always one leg of that metal. It is generally assumed to be a pun predicated upon gait. Hoblyn is most famous for extensive reconstruction to the familial seat. The barrow is presumuably intended as both tumulus and tool. Hobyln studied at Eton ( Floreat Etona ) and Corpus Christi at Oxford.


	9. Chapter 9

Segundus bent his head a little towards his companion, smiling that smile of his and nodding enthusiastically. 

“Oh, but the ancient Romans had so much to say about magic!” he said, placing his wine glass down delicately so that he could more enthusiastically gesture with his hands, “I could recommend you some very good books, if only I had…” he was patting his sides now, “…oh, I have no pockets!”

The young man in the priest's collar reached into his own pocket and pulled out a memorandum book and pencil, which Segundus took eagerly and began to scribble in. He had not been very successful at staying in character and the fact of his being a magician had been early discovered.

Childermass was used to not having a good time at parties. Most of the parties he attended were not ones that were meant for his benefit, to be sure, but even at a servants’ ball he was not exactly the life and soul, being not much of a dancer or a drinker, and since these were the two chief pastimes at these events he usually came off as a rather a bore.

It surprised him, therefore, to find himself having a good time at this one. It was not a fancy party, which helped, and it was made up of slightly eccentric literary and artistic types, who at the very least could hold a conversation about things other than horses, dogs, fashion and acreage,

In one corner there was an enthusiastic game of charades going on in which a rakish cavalier, a regal-looking princess and what Childermass supposed to be a burlesque depiction of a magician were laughing in puzzlement at the attempts of a saucy milkmaid to convey “inconstancy”, an answer which Childermass had worked out some minutes before. The window seat held Miss Austen herself and a friend with whom she was sharing what seemed to be the most urgent and exciting confidences. The centre of the room was taken up with languid types lounging on the furniture and making cutting remarks about people both present and not, and the spot by the fire was the scene of Mr Segundus’s impromptu lecture on the magic of ancient Rome.

Childermass himself was simply leaning against a bookcase, not talking to anyone. And yet he had to admit to himself that he was in fact having a nice time. He touched the back of his neck. His hair had not yet fallen loose, and it was a novelty not to feel it tickling the back of his neck or have it falling into his eyes.

*

“I must ask you for a favour in return,” he had said as he handed Segundus the ribbon, “since although I have been able to make my dress tolerably neat, I have never had much success in doing my hair to match.”

Segundus had taken the ribbon, staring at it in his hand for a few moments. He had opened his mouth but said nothing, and then, taking hold of Childermass’s shoulder he had spun him round and gathered his hair into his hands. Childermass, expecting a couple of swift loops of the ribbon finished off with a neat bow, had been standing there for a good few moments before he had realised Segundus was doing something else. He had in fact been finger-combing the hair and dividing it into sections, a sensation that Childermass was not familiar with and had been surprised to find quite pleasant.

“I have a bottle to bring to the party,” Segundus had said lightly, “I obtained it earlier today from a very friendly chap in the Raven, on Quiet Street.”

“A public house? I would not have taken you for a solitary drinker, Mr Segundus.” Childermass had replied, wincing a little as Segundus’s fingers caught a particularly tangled knot.  
  
“My apologies. No, I simply needed a place to sit down to remove a stone from my shoe, and of course I did not like to occupy a seat without purchasing a drink, and so in the end I fell into conversation with a wine-seller who had lately finished his selling for the day. He was a very well-travelled fellow and we had a very interesting conversation. In the end he produced a bottle of chianti and offered it to me for a very good price, very good indeed!”  
  
Childermass had been listening to this with half an ear, so novel were the sensations his scalp was experiencing, but he had laughed to hear this. “You bought a bottle of wine from a man in a public house? Forgive me sit, but that does not seem very much in your character.”

Segundus had also chuckled. “Well in that you are wrong. You are not the only one with resources at your disposal,” All the while he had been speaking he was doing something with his hands, crossing and re-crossing the sections of hair in a manner that had made Childermass think of spells he had read about, “and I must tell you: I think you will find it most interesting, as bottles of wine go. It is from a kingdom which no longer exists.”

“And where is this kingdom? Faerie? Elsewhere?”

“Oh no, somewhere nearer and yet farther than that.”

“Then where? It amuses you to keep me in suspense.”

“It is a Chianti wine from the Kingdom of Etruria.”

“Chianti? Somewhere in Italy, then, I assume? One of their fly-by-night city-states?”

Segundus had sadly sighed: "It is part of Bonaparte’s empire now.”

Childermass had then felt a sharp tug on his hair, and a gentle thump against the back of neck as Segundus dropped the neatly-plaited queue he had conjured.

“I have done the best I can,” Segundus had said, stepping back from his work with a critical tone in his voice, “I am sorry it took so very long; I had to undo my work and begin again more than once. I have not done such a thing for a long time.”

Childermass had turned to face him. “What is it?” he had asked, seeing something strange in Segundus’s expression, “I am sure I must look ridiculous.”

In answer Segundus had only turned away, seeming suddenly bashful, and in truth Childermass had also felt strangely reluctant to meet his eye after their easy chatter of only moments before. He had taken up Segundus’s shaving mirror from the wash-stand and turned it this way and that.

“No, I do not believe I am ridiculous. My hair has not looked this neat in a very long time!”

Despite what he had said to Segundus, he had felt a little ridiculous. Not for the first time he had wondered what he was about, dressing up like this and encouraging a sober gentleman of 40 to do the same. He had also detected a note of forced jollity in his own voice that he didn’t like, and that he didn’t think became him, so he had put the mirror back down and said, rather gruffly:

“At any rate, I thank you. And I have procured a bottle of my own to bring. I did not want us to be empty-handed so I had my friend in Bristol fetch me something that will be popular with the ladies and gentlemen.”

*

Childermass was brought out of these thoughts by another party guest approaching with the very bottle, peering at the label.

“I say, you brought this, didn’t you? It’s uncommonly good, upon my word. _Juglar_ , how singular.”

Childermass nodded his head at the gentleman, “Indeed sir, and I am glad to see that you have not been so foolish as to wait for me to offer you a taste before giving your opinion.”

The man squinted at Childermass for a moment and then laughed heartily, slapping Childermass on the back, much to his chagrin, and saying: “Oh, you tease me. You must know we do not stand on ceremony at dear Maud’s little soirees.”

Childermass gently took the bottle from the other man’s hand and poured himself a glass, pointedly putting the bottle behind him on the bookshelf and not offering to pour another for his new friend. He smiled an ironical sort of smile and took a sip of his champagne. It was rather good, and not at all what Childermass was used to drinking, when he drank at all. He considered telling this good-natured sot exactly how he had come to get this fine bottle of champagne, just to see the look on his face.

“Well, sir,” the man, whose name was Felix Webbe, though he had not bothered to introduce himself to Childermass thus far, continued, “you look very stern, the very image of a naval man. Just who is it that you intend to embody this evening?”

“I embody nobody but myself, Mr Webbe. I am the captain of a sixth-rate that sails from Bristol on the morrow. I had, as you can see,” he said, gesturing with his free hand towards his tightly buttoned jacked and shining black boots, “no time to change clothes.”

“Oh, very good, very good. So you are a jolly Jack tar, are you? And what is the name of your ship?”

“The Tyne.”

“The Tyne! But that is a most commonplace name for a ship. It would be as if I asked your name and you replied that it was John. Could not you have thought up a more surprising name for it? Well then, if I am to believe you, you really must explain why a fine captain of Bristol, without anything like a Bristol accent, has arrived at Magdalene Wharton’s party, a guest of Miss Jane Austen of Berkshire, along with a bottle of French wine, a bottle of Italian wine and a companion dressed up like Caesar himself?”

Childermass raised his eyebrows as if to say ‘well, what can one do?’ He didn’t expect Felix Webbe to be satisfied with this, and indeed he was not.

“Oh, you are vexatious.” Mr Webbe said petulantly. “If you cannot explain yourself, and you will not share any more of your excellent wine, at least can you guess who I am meant to be?” He threw his arms open as if throwing off a cape, and Childermass looked him up and down.

He was wearing a most ordinary outfit, truth be told. He wore ordinary breeches, ordinary shoes, a plain shirt and a quite ordinary waistcoat, over which he had put on an ordinary jacket. In fact if someone had asked Childermass whether this gentleman was meant to appear as anything other than a slightly-shabby young man attending a party in an unfashionable part of Bath, he would have said no, of course not.

Seeing this is his face, Felix Webbe huffed again and threw his arms down to his sides.

“I am Coelebs! Coelebs In Search of a Wife!” he cried.

This was such a bizarre statement that Childermass could only continue to stare.

“Oh, goodness, I know it is not long published, but I had expected someone here to have read the damned thing!” Felix said, looking defeated, “It is quite the burden to be so much ahead of fashion as it seems I always am.” At this he turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, seeming a good deal less affably tipsy than he had ten minutes before.

Childermass chuckled softly to himself and took another sip of his drink. It occurred to him that he could no longer hear Segundus’s voice and he looked towards the seats by the fire to see how he was faring.

*

When they had first arrived, after Segundus had introduced him to the hostess and to Miss Austen, Childermass had immediately bent his attention to determining where the chairs were, how close to the fire Mr Segundus might like to sit, whether there were refreshments and how they could most easily be conveyed to said seat. He had been pulled up short by said Mr Segundus walking ahead of him into the drawing room. Segundus had begun immediately introducing himself, shaking hands and bowing around the room until he had finally availed himself of a corkscrew from the sideboard. He had then opened his wine and poured himself a glass, offering the bottle to those of the assemblage that were close enough for him to do so. He had completed his performance by drawing up a chair to the table where a number of people were finishing up a game of Baccarat.

Even after this, there had been a number of occasions where Childermass had automatically looked over to check on Segundus, breaking off whatever small conversations he was having with a thought of _he will be hungry_ , _he will be tired_ , or _he will be becoming fretful_ , only to spy John Segundus laughing, or listening intently, or indeed taking an enormous and rather ungraceful bite out of some kind of fashionable new pastry that had been described to him as a sausage roll.

Each time he had done this, Segundus had caught his eye and smiled warmly, raising an eyebrow quizzically as if to ask ‘are you quite well?’ Childermass could only nod in return. _Christ, it is agreeable to spend time in his company,_ he had thought, though he could not quite imagine himself being employed by John Segundus somehow, even had the gentleman had the means to keep a staff.

*

So it was with these thoughts he turned to where Segundus had been sitting, thinking to perhaps join them if the two were finding a lull in their conversation. He had already begun to smile as he turned his head, and so it was an unpleasant surprise to him to catch the eye of someone else instead.

Where Segundus had been sitting, Miss Austen sat instead, quite alone. She seemed to take Childermass’s smile as intended for her and she smiled back, beckoning him to come and sit by her. He did so, retrieving his Champagne bottle and filling her empty glass as he passed it. Being polite to ladies was not something he was called upon to do often, but he felt he understood to form of it.

“Oh, thank you, Mr Childermass, that is very kind of you. You must write down what this is and where you got it, my brother might like the recommendation.”

“It is no trouble, Miss Austen, I will be sure to. I thank you for inviting my… my friend and I to attend. Are you having a pleasant evening?”

Miss Austen laughed and covered her mouth, glancing at the door. “That is exactly what I wished to speak with you about. It has been very pleasant so far, and all the more pleasant for your putting Mr Webbe in his place earlier. He really can be a tremendous bore and it has been too long since someone really stumped him. I congratulate you, sir, it was well-deserved.”

Childermass smiled crookedly at Miss Austen, and replied: “Well, I have been reprimanded for rudeness many times in my life, so I shall take your thanks as a rare gift.”

Miss Austen laughed at this and then leaned in conspiratorially. “Now, I know you will be thinking to buttonhole me about those books.”

Childermass, who had indeed been on the point of broaching the topic, merely inclined his head a little in agreement.

“Well, I must refuse you for now. I have, in truth, had very little to drink, but a little is not none and I do not wish to discuss these matters without a clear head. Not,” she said, a little more soberly, “that I would accuse you of wishing to cheat a lady out of her possessions. I am sure you and your employer are quite above reproach, but I have been offered money for these books before and I am fairly well aware of their worth. They are some of the only things I have left of my father and I would not part with them lightly. And that is why,” she continued, her tone become light again, “I invite you both to breakfast with us tomorrow, here, at Mrs Wharton’s house.” She waved to this lady as she said this, and received an amicable wave in return. “She does love to have a houseful. At any rate we can discuss it then.”

She beamed at Childermass, who rather felt that this was not his invitation to accept.

“Thank you, madam, that is most kind. I would feel better if I were able to discuss it with Mr Segundus before accepting, if you would not feel offended.”

“Oh, of course, please tell dear My Segundus, and tell him to come and speak with me if he feels uneasy about it, and we can speak with Mrs Wharton so he will know just how welcome you both would be.”

“Much obliged to you,” Childermass replied, “and speaking of that gentleman, did you see where he has taken himself off to?”

“I am not sure,” Miss Austen said, craning her neck over the back of her seat, “he did leave in rather a hurry. He looked on the point of speaking to you and Mr Webbe, but then he changed his mind and left the room. I do not see him, he may be in the parlour, there is a pianoforte there and I think there was a plan to play it and get some singing going.”

Childermass began to say that he didn’t really think Mr Segundus was a musical gentleman, but stopped, as he wasn’t sure why he would think that, or why he was forming opinions on Mr Segundus at all. He himself did not feel uneasy about Jane Austen’s assumption that the two of them must be great friends, but he felt that Mr Segundus would feel differently.

*

They had eventually managed to get Mr Segundus’s sandals on, Childermass’s hair arranged correctly, the toga tied in a way that didn’t make it seem like it would fly off at any moment, and their bottles collected. And so they had set off, a merry pair, Childermass thought. He had been rather glad the party was so close, as he didn’t much fancy wandering the streets of Bath in this get-up.

After they had left Segundus’s room (the man himself had been persuaded to forgo his stockings and so was slightly scandalously barelegged below the knee, though still in shirt and breeches under his senatorial garb. He had agreed that he _might_ be persuaded later to roll up his sleeves in pursuit of verisimilitude, but that really was the limit. “It is all very well for you,” he had said, gesturing at Childermass’s shining buttons, “You look uncommonly fine, and you are quite properly buttoned up from collar to cuff”) Childermass had knocked on his own door, and getting no answer, had peeked inside to confirm that Davey was off on some errand or adventure of his own.

They had regained their ease of manner somewhat and they found themselves discussing disguise magic as they walked. Segundus was of the opinion that such magic would be very useful in everyday life – never having to dress for dinner, never needing to worry about the state of one’s cuffs. He sounded rather morose as he had said this. Childermass, who was used to appearing as himself and expecting people to take him as they found him, had only shrugged. It had all seemed very friendly at the time.

*

Musing on this, Childermass took his leave of Miss Austen after a few minutes more conversation and went to find the parlour. He was led there by the sound of raucous voices singing what sounded like some kind of bawdy folk song. He pushed open the door to discover that this was exactly the case, and that the pianoforte had been abandoned in favour of one man banging the rhythm on a table.

His entering the room broke up their shaky harmony and they began to loudly insist that he join in. He bowed his apologies and asked them if they had seen his friend, Mr Segundus. Yes, they had seen him, but he had refused their entreaties to join in the singing and so they had expelled him, as they must also expel Childermass if he continued to refuse. Childermass bowed again and backed out of the door, closing it behind him just as the choirmaster began to bang his table once more.

He turned to face the hallway and was momentarily startled to be face to face with the very many he sought. He began to smile again as he had done back in the drawing room, but it was not met with a smile in return. Childermass nodded his head in place of a bow and began to speak. “Mr Segundus, just the man I was looking for. Miss Austen has asked-”

“I can well imagine what she has asked! For you to leave, for us both to leave, I should think!” Segundus said heatedly. He was clearly very upset, and not a little tipsy. This was a lot closer to what Childermass was used to from gentlemen at parties, and one of the reasons why he seldom enjoyed them.

“Not at all, Mr Segundus,” Childermass said, in a voice which he had used many times to bring Mr Norrell down from some high dudgeon or other, “She has merely invited us to-”

“Oh, do not use that tone with me! I am not a skittish horse!”

“Sir, if you would but let me finish-” Childermass attempted, but Segundus was already storming off. Childermass was left standing baffled in the hallway of Maud Wharton’s Bath town house, serenaded by the cat’s choir in the parlour and clutching his wine glass in his hand.


	10. A Scholarly Interlude Part Three

_From - "The Library of Albert - Europe's Magical Collections" by DA McGee_

The folly of Chateau Phalecque in Lompret drew inspiration from a series of sources, perhaps most striking is that, as another of Europe's lost libraries, it was not-ironically shaped as a candle, a light of knowledge to the surrounding gardens.

There are no contemporary drawings of the folly, though we can make some surmise as to form, function, and structure. There would doubtless have been plans, but it was not uncommon for architectural studies for follies of learning to take pride of place amongs the displays, and as such it is likely that they were lost in the fire of 1808. We know from INRAP's 2016 archeological work that the structure had a circular central well, bordered in the cardinal directions by four parallelograms asymmetrically sized. Records suggest that it was constructed in the 1770s, with design and logistical support from those who built Phare de Barfleur (now Phare de Gatteville).

The chateau was at that point still owned by the Imbert family, Nicolas de Imbert was ennobled in 1608 and his work on heraldry remains useful to scholars. It is suspected that as the Phalecque estate was handed down the heraldic library grew - there is evidence from both probate equivalent records and executries that where no heirs had expressed an interest in literary collections they were gifted to the estate at Phalecque for, in the words of one will, "the care and consideration thereof". There are bills of sale that indicate that one of Phalecque's significant sources of income over these years was the sale of works that were otherwise duplicated in their collection, the estate's proximity to the border and the coast meant that many of those were abroad. It is believed that the Imbert's (or at least one or other of their agents) was well known to collectors of esoteric texts, and we have information that one or other of them had lodgings and an office at London's Haymarket near to the theatre district, proximate to where now stands France's trade mission.

These trades were enough to allow not only the construction of a purpose-built library but the import of Italian marble, African hardwoods, Swiss mechanisms to outfit it to the highest specifications. Some historians of the era and area have assumed that references in regional folk songs to the "falcon moths" relate to the library at Phalecque, in many cases these are substitutions in traditional melodies to more common figures like the faerie, the Devil, and latterly towards the French Revolution untrustworthy nobles (it's not unlikely that any or all were somewhat blurred). There is an argument that a drinking song roughly translated as "my way to Lille was lit by greed" relates specifically to Lompret's placement on one of the major routes in the region.

While we do not have drawings we do have elements of description. There are accounts of visits to the structure that mention the function of the five 'rooms', an entrance chamber dominated by a ramped book-case, a small room described as a 'snug' with room for simple meals, beside the sole fire-place in the structure, a north-facing study and a south-facing bedroom - it's known that visiting scholars would be given the chance to stay within the structure, and a log-cum-visitors book retained at Chateau Phalecque suggests that it was almost always occupied, save for high-days and holy-days. There are bookings made years in advance, above and beyond the requirements of travel and transport and the complexities of intermittent hostilities.

We know that some elements of the structure are similar to those of the Broken Column House of Desert de Retz, but the "bougie gouttière" was both smaller and shorter. Without drawings we are limited in our attempts to synthesise the multiple descriptions, but there are elements that are agreed upon by various witnesses.

The structure resembled a candle, perhaps two to three storeys tall, its exterior clad in carved white marble, in places possessed of a semi-pearlescent sheen as a consequence of weathering. The archeological remnants suggest that the walls were not in and of themselves enough to support the structure and its books, but descriptions of the 'wax' exterior suggest that there may have been systems of buttressing obfuscated by the folly's 'dribbles'. The four small structures were of stone, jacketed in a dark brass to resemble a candle-holder. There is later evidence that a 'saucer' section around the structure contained gardens, and contemporary descriptions suggest that the flora was primarily white-flowering species. The 'jacket' of the structure apparently included a 'peak' that hid the chimney and a system of baffles that let smoke by kept away from the folly's crown.

The bubbles and baubles of the buttresses are alleged to contain not just drainage for the structure's odd roof, but reading nooks and alcoves for artefacts. It's possible that the structure used hyperbolic sections for strength, though this may exaggerate the sophistication of stone-working techniques of the time. What is known is that it supported a spiral walkway and its parallel bookcase, the fantastic decoration of the exterior, and a complex assembly at its peak.

The "flame of Phalecque", bronze, glass, quartz, sculpted in the shape of a candle flame with channels to divert both wind and rain to hidden gutters in the tower beneath it, intended to catch northern light and reflect it down through the supporting structure. The folly possessed only two windows, one small south-facing in the bed-chamber and the flame itself, though by means of mirrors (including the still not clearly understood 'base reflector') this light filled the structure in daylight hours. Northern light chosen for its un-moving shadow, as with latter engraveries and printworks, but also perhaps to propitiate one deity or demigod or another. It is vanishingly unlikely that a stone structure this complex was made without Masonic intervention, but however secretive those bodies might be the secrets held in pre-Revolutionary Catholic France are even more deeply buried. Suffice to say that any number of trades were likely involved in construction of the structure, but there are no records of any apprenticeships or masteries attached. It may be that (as with the stone) the workers were imported. There is roughly contemporary mention in one of Lille's gazettes of incidents involving Italian workers and drunkenness, but that falls within a pattern of rhetoric that would later rouse different rabbles.

From the outside, then, a giant's candle, in any light the gleaming (latterly green) flame an indication of strange magicks within. The area within accessed through a heavy brass door of unusual shape, a dark cave punctuated by a still shaft of cold light. There are accounts that suggest this light was of varied hue, if trick it was it is likely connected to the irregular purchase of stained glass from a manufacturer in Lille, small windows to be fitted to a frame the estate provided. A system of louvres of coloured glass could account for the variety described, and also its fragility. Descriptions suggest heavy curtains to muffle sound and retain some vestiges of warmth from the single fireplace, and to protect the collection from what light was allowed.

Imbert was a heraldic scholar, and as part of his studies a genealogist. His family carried on this work, and the vaulted flame of Phalecque was a storehouse for this and other works. The hereditary information had currency with those looking to curry favour with the ruling elite, and later keeping those connections secret gained additional importance. For scholars of magical history, the parallels between heraldry and bestiary are obvious, and any numer of nobles claimed lineage from one mythical entity or another. For every dozen magician or cult figure whose supernatural sobriquet was figurative it is assumed there is one or other for whom the connection was less humourous than sanguine.

For a variety of reasons we have no single catalogue of the collection. We can establish from works sold, at auction or clandestinely, what was redundant to the library. From these we can establish a few habits within the curation - a focus on heraldic works, obviously, but a key focus on arcane texts and in particular translations, as well as a variety of enciphered manuscripts. Some have noticed a parallel between the destruction of the Phalecque library (fire) and the elemental importance of 1809 to the Hermetic Order, but whether that golden flame was signal to a golden dawn remains a cause for some controversy. One of the many sets of works known to have passed through the Eyrie of Lille are iterative translations of various hermetic works. Some have suggested that the resemblance of the folly to a mediaeval scriptorum isn't coincidental, and that the mirror/lighting arrangements would also serve to allow a handful of scribes to copy one work simultaneously. It would be uncharitable to suggest that the successors of Imbert were running a cottage industry con-job upon willing conjurers across Europe, but one would not be alone in doing so.

It is suggested that one of the reasons Phalecque survived sackings during the Revolution was that something there was useful to the cadres. There are a series of marks on pamphlets from the region that suggest the P.E.P. (Press Ecrite Phalecque) were instrumental in dissemination of revolutionary texts. There is also a possible echo in popular media - in or around 1788 the household ordered several barrels of blacking and tar, perhaps to obscure the golden domes of the folly. The family name Phalecque translates as Falconer, and through their connections in hermeneuticism any number of knightly orders were known to have visited.

It has also been suggested that Phalecque was preserved because the latter Imbret were not just villeins but villains - the house sits on Le Chemin Noir ("The Black Way") and Lille's proximity to both coast and border had it a hot-bed of under-the-table dealings. Not just of literary and magical artefacts, but latterly escaping nobles and, even during the blockades of the Napoleonic Wars, alcohol. There's a rum punch apparently native to the region but the earliest sources for it do not explain how rum came to be in the area. Other mysteries include the sales records of the now defunct Juglar champagne house, who in one season recorded sales sufficient to put a bottle on the table of every household in that year's census. It's not known how they were distributed, but regular flows of vessels between the ever more parlous British siege camp at Walcheren and the mainland would have provided cover for all manner of shipping even between hostile powers. Though the war of the Fifth coalition ended in mud, disease, and misery, and the Peninsular war was still ongoing, there was ample opportunity to profit by crossing multiple lines of battle.

IN 1792 during the siege of Lille a unit of Uhlans was quartered there. The tower's command over the older fortifications was doubtless useful to co-ordinating the attackers. That it survived the creation of a "no man's land" around the older Castle Du Phalecque when other structures were razed is an indication of the utility that was seen in it. Commanding views to the north along the road to Lille would have been something, but in an area rich with stately homes and chateau there were no shortage of places to garrison. Accounts vary, but it is suggested that much of the area had been given back to woodland, and that as Lille's suburbs contracted much of the surrounding area fell to neglect and then to verdant decay. LIDAR mapping of the area suggests that a structure of up to 15m would have been effectively invisible from the village of Lompret if screened by relatively mature woodland, and even now the estate's eponymous road is sheltered by boundary boughs.

What is less clear is how the library came to be lost. By fire, certainly, and in short order the remains covered. INRAP's survey found a 16th century stone cannonball among the material that hid the site, suggesting that older earthworks had been moved to cover the newer construction with some haste. The age of structures nearby suggest that the site had been hidden by 1810 or so, though accounts differ as to what happened to that section of the woodlands and gardens. The house was to change hands later in the 19th century and subsequently be doubled in size, some have suggested that the expanded frontage made use of 'native' marble for highlights within its quite handsome aspect. The house at that point was perhaps insufficient for the enterprises being run by the family and their hangers on. In books of accounts there's a series of payments made to nearby households, but at least one of these sets of books makes reference to the 'epligat'.

In 2017 INRAP's archeological survey along the banks of the Becque Du Corbeau (lit. 'Raven's Beak'), the watercourse that runs through Lompret found a series of structures filled in with earth. They had been identified as storehouses until a student on exchange suggested they resembled the dwellings at Skara Brae. Given that they were probably abandoned in or around 1820 and the knoll at Skerrabra would remain intact for decades more it cannot be that archeology made that connection. The 'dwellings' were each quite well appointed and dressed in stone, and connected by trench-like covered-walkways it would have been quite possible to move between them and the (now much diminished) watercourse with ease and without detection. The land was and still is mostly given over to orchards, and so 'epligat' / Apple Street was called.

This was not, in truth, the first time the structure had been discovered. As with its Orcadian cousin excavation had occured more than once. Some eighty years earlier as Leon Pericard was excavating the limestone slabs of La Marche and Lwoff was using them as a shaky foundation for speculation, the Prehistoric Society of France was engaged in debate about a sophisticated slate structure outside Lille. Press proximity rarely nurtures good scholarship, and so it was here. A few short years after Childe Piggot and Clark had founded a sister society in England, cross-Channel cross-pollination yielded strange hybrids. Though they had some three decades more history to draw upon, this did not make their work any easier. Indeed, shorn of youthful enthusiasm the society had had time to foment, ferment, and fissure. A schismatic group within the SPF set up shop in the city and began to The presence of worked stone and skeletal remains were spun into a tale of hidden hominids, fisher-folk Francaise. This conjecture was not as neat as the construction on those banks, nor as solid.

Initially the similarity had seen credulous mention in the press of a new neolithic chapter in regional history, apparently immaculately preserved. La VOix Du Nord made a mark in headline history with "Un Nouveau Pomme-Pays", and the association with "L'Homme Lompret" remained until further investigation at the site found clear evidence post-dating the site. However advanced the stone-working peoples of the area may have been, the presence of a small printing press and, perhaps equally incongruously, a British Army Baker-rifle bayonet and a naval pistol. Each of these somewhat suggested later origin.

As scandals of French archeology go it was a minor one, soon obscured by the second world war and the actual pre-history of the cave at Lascaux. As with much of the material from the area it is believe the stone was scavenged and used for later construction, the re-built chateau at Phalecque has a low wall on the Becque Du Corbeau believed to be of stone from Epligat and the restored floor of Our Lady Of The Assumption is also believed to be of that stone. The presence of slate in Northern France is unremarkable, save that analysis of composition suggests at least some of it is from North Yorkshire.

In "The Magpie's Burden", her wide ranging assay of criminality in the early 18th century, S.M. Paling describes the shipbuilding requirements of a variety of different smuggling endeavours. In 'The White Rose At Dawn' she explores not only the flat-bottomed coal-traders whose trade had supported Cook's expeditions, but the lighter (and faster) 'razor' cutters, whose limited cargo capacity and complicated dynamics meant that empty vessels needed quite complex ballasting. Drawing on the presence of Yorkshire slate at Lompret, she found evidence of French slate at Robin Hood's Bay. Though we can readily surmise that this meant vessels were travelling empty between the two sites, reaching Lille along the Lys before entering smaller watercourses like Becque Du Corbeau, it has until recently been a matter of conjecture as to what they carried. That was, at least, until a striking coincidence was noted in, of all places, the correspondence of a figure one would not have expected to be connected to international intrigue: Jane Austen.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Segundus has The Fear.

John Segundus woke for the second day in a row with a headache in an unfamiliar bed. He rubbed his eyes and groaned aloud as he remembered the spectacle he had made of himself the night before.

He had _shouted_ , he had _gesticulated_ , he had _stormed about_ and _slammed doors_ , oh, it was not to be borne.

And all the while dressed like a madman, barefoot and in a sheet. He covered his eyes with his arm, groping blindly with the other for his carafe on the bedside table.

He had been having, truly, an excellent time. It was wonderful to see Jane and to meet her friends. He had even had a chance to talk about magic to a most charming young man who had seemed most flatteringly interested in everything he had had to say on the matter, and had almost been on the point of allowing Segundus to become a bit of a bore.

Childermass hadn’t really joined in, and that was the beginning of the problem. He had floated and hovered round the edges of the room, and had sometimes seemed upon the point of speaking, but had not.

Segundus groaned, pouring himself a glass of water with a shaky hand. He was a fool. Childermass would be embarrassed to know him. He drank the water down in a single gulp and put the glass down rather more heavily than he had intended to.

And now he would have to not only have breakfast with him, but he would need to share a days-long carriage journey with him. He ran his hand through his hair and flopped back into the bed.  
  
He lay there, willing himself to get up and dressed.

But why should he feel ashamed? Childermass was the rude one! He remembered all at once the look on Mrs Wharton’s guest’s face after speaking with Childermass for only a few minutes. He seethed under the blankets with second-hand embarrassment and rage. His head throbbed.

He felt, more than anything, like an idiot. For thinking that he and a man like Childermass could ever be friends. For inviting a servant to a party – not because he was ashamed to be seen with John Childermass, never that - but for exposing him, with his strange ways, to these ladies and gentlemen, to censure and ridicule, and in so doing exposing himself, the man who had brought him there.  
  
He was sure that they must have been the talk of the party. He had felt it in the mocking laughter of the singing party in the parlour. He had sensed it in the tone of the chat he had overheard when he had taken his leave of Childermass in order to take some air in the street (and to fight the urge to be discreetly sick in the bushes).

He pulled the blankets over his head. He had to admit to himself that he had had a little too much to drink.

The walk to breakfast was, as Segundus had feared, rather awkward. Childermass had greeted him in the corridor with all civility, asking after his head, and expressing his relief that Mr Segundus had made it back to their lodgings safely, since he had taken himself off so abruptly, and by himself.

Segundus was glad, for the first time that morning, that he was still feeling rather faint, as he knew he would be blushing to the roots of his hair otherwise. He stole a sidelong glance at Childermass as they walked along, and caught him with a strange look on his face, almost his usual twisted-root smile, but not quite reaching his eyes.

Segundus began to walk a little faster.

It being a fine day for the time of year, breakfast was to be taken on the terrace, which is to say six people crowded around a wrought-iron table in a slightly dingy paved yard behind the Maud’s house, overlooked by all of her neighbours, and haunted by a mangy-looking stray cat, drawn by the smell of kippers.

Said kippers were going a long way towards restoring Segundus’s good humour, along with the coffee, much nicer than any that he could afford for himself.

Thankfully the gentleman that had been so rudely treated by Childermass was not present. Reading between the lines of the tactful apologies made by their host, it could be ascertained that Mr Webbe was still abed, and not likely to rise any time soon.

Segundus was quietly glad that he had not, in the end, imbibed so much as to be in a similar state.

Miss Austen seemed delighted to see them both, embracing Segundus warmly and allowing Childermass to grace her with an elegant bow. She seemed quite insensible of the shameful behaviour they had both evidenced the night before, and, after they were all seated, had proceeded to direct Maud’s servant to pour them a cup of coffee each.

There was much conversation, of the night before, of the day’s plans, and of the splendidness of the weather. Childermass had brought Jane’s manuscript, so that she could see that it had come to no harm, and he told her gravely that he intended to return it to the publisher that very morning after breakfast. She looked over the cover sheet, exclaiming: “Northanger Abbey? That is not my title, my book is called ‘Susan’!”

Segundus quickly lost the thread of this conversation, since the young man who had been so interested in magic was there also, begging Segundus to look over the notes he had taken, and to add anything else that may have been missed in the haze of fine wine the previous evening. He found himself rather taken up with this, pondering whether it was fair to recommend several texts that he knew very well could be found in only one place in all of England – Norrell’s library.

Thinking of this, he looked up to see Childermass in deep conversation with Miss Austen. They seemed to be hashing out the details of the book sale, and Segundus looked away with a sour look on his face. He could not help but feel this was beneath Jane’s dignity, and beneath Childermass’s too, which seemed almost worse.

He scribbled down a few more notes, handed the copy-book back to the earnest young man, and stood up rather abruptly, his chair scraping the flagstones shockingly.

“I apologise, I really must take a walk. I find myself out of sorts.” he said, and as he turned to go, he heard Maud Wharton say (none-too-quietly) to the gentleman to her right:

“Ah, poor man, the kippers must be about to make his reacquaintance.”

So be it, let them think he couldn’t keep down his breakfast. He simply needed to be alone.

An hour later, he called again at the house, and found that Childermass had left also, shortly after breakfast. He took Maud Wharton aside and made her a handsome apology for his rudeness. She smiled behind her fan and magnanimously declared the whole thing forgotten about already. She allowed him to bow and kiss her hand, before letting him know that Miss Austen was in the parlour, and most ardently desired to speak with him before he took his leave back to London.

Segundus made his way to the parlour, remembering with a grimace the cacophony that had issued forth from it not 12 hours prior. Jane rose from her seat as soon as he entered, and clasped his hands in hers, seemingly ready to dance with him around the room, so full of joy was she.

“Oh John, it is wonderful! Wonderful!” she exclaimed, releasing him and sitting down with a flounce of her skirt. Segundus could not help but smile and ask her what it was that was so wonderful.

“Those books – the three magical books I had inherited from my father. You know, I had kept them mainly out of sentimentality, but I did know they were worth something. But you will never guess the price Childermass’s master has agreed to pay!”

Segundus smiled again, though he felt misgivings in his heart, and said: “Dearest Jane, thought I harbour no love for his master, I know Childermass is fair man and I am sure he has offered a very fair price for the books. But pray, do not feel obliged to sell them to him simply because he has asked, I do not wish that you should feel any pressure- ”

He was cut off by Jane pressing into his hand a bill-of-sale written in Childermass’s familiar hand.

The figure was quite astonishing and stopped Segundus’ voice dead in his throat. He goggled at the paper for a few moments, before clearing his throat and handing the paper back to Jane. She saw his wild look and clapped her hands.

“I am very happy, John. This sum will cover my little expenses for quite some time, and allow me to live very handsomely too.”

Knowing what “very handsomely” meant to people like them, Segundus smiled once again and took her hand, pulling her to her feet and dancing with her around the room in earnest.

If anything, however, he felt even more foolish than he had this morning, thinking of how angry and resentful he had felt towards Childermass. What ideas had he been admitting?

The three travellers had met again at the lodging house, their valises packed, the carriage brought round. Davey seemed well-fed and well-rested after adventures of his own, and he climbed to his high seat with a cheerful spring in his step.

Childermass helped Segundus in to the carriage again, his head courteously tilted. Segundus took his seat atop his cushion and pointed his attention out of the window as Childermass followed him in, making himself comfortable. Soon they were underway, and Segundus felt that he should say something.

“I am sorry, Mr Childermass.” he said softly.

“Your apology is accepted, of course, Mr Segundus, but not at all necessary.”

Segundus’s gut twisted at the polite detachedness of the reply. Oh, when they had been so close to becoming friends!

“No, it is very necessary, I am afraid. I must admit that I had a little too much to drink and I let my… my thoughts run away with me.” He glanced at Childermass, who was regarding him with open interest. He looked away again and pressed on.

“I could not fathom why you had asked me to introduce you to my friend Miss Austen. I am not used to being- to being useful to a person such as you and in such a way. I am afraid I have believed, all this time, without truly realising it, that you were bent on taking advantage of my good nature and the good nature of my friend.”

He stopped, unsure if he was expressing himself adequately. He looked at his feet.

“If you believed this, sir, why then did you agree to the plan? I am very sorry if you feel that I have twisted your arm in this.”

“Oh! No! It is all my own doing,” Segundus exclaimed, this time meeting Childermass’s eye, “You see, even with those misgivings, I was most eager to spend time with you, and for you to meet my friend Miss Austen. You see, I had the strongest presentiment that your conversation would be interesting and your company welcome, and I believed, and still believe, that you and I could be friends. Do you not agree?”

Childermass regarded him warily for a few moments, before gracing Segundus with a smile that, as we have seen, would not charm many, but Segundus found it charming, and it reached all the way to his eyes this time.

For a wild moment Segundus thought that Childermass was going to take his hand, and he opened his fingers before coming to his senses. Childermass’s gaze flickered between Segundus’s hand and his face, and then he spoke:

“I am sorry too, Mr Segundus. I did not mean to offend your friends, and if I have embarrassed you I repent it sorely. I had flattered myself that Miss Austen, at least, enjoyed my company, but if I am mistaken- ”

“Oh!” exclaimed Segundus once more, “Oh pray do not be uneasy on that account, she found you very charming. I spoke with her after breakfast, and she told me she had not had such an amusing time at a party in many a year. She told me that you had even suggested a new title for her book.”  
  
Childermass scoffed.

“I merely re-titled it so that Mr Norrell would not dismiss it out of hand. Mr Norrell would not read a book called ‘Susan’ even if it was the only comfort afforded him in a well-lit oubliette. I doubt even that he would read a book called ‘Susan’ if its pages contained a map to the Holy Grail and a catalogue for the Library of Alexandria. In fact if I consider it I am not even sure that he would speak to a person named ‘Susan’ if he could help it.”

Segundus was provoked by this into a genuine guffaw, and then he looked away, blushing very slightly.

“She told me also that you sent a noted boor away with a flea in his ear, and that after I was… indisposed, you read fortunes for the whole assemblage.”

Childermass say back in his seat.

“Aye, that I did. I flatter myself in my skill with the Cards of Marseille,” he said guardedly, “Even if I am no true magician.”

“Well, John, I am merely theoretical, we are neither of us a Norrell or a Strange.” replied Segundus in a conciliatory tone, still looking out of the window as Bath began to give way to the countryside once more.

There was a companionable silence in the carriage for a while after that, which was broken by Childermass ostentatiously clearing his throat. Segundus met his eye quizzically.

“I am surprised, Mr Segundus, that you have shown such forbearance thus far,” Childermass said, in a teasing tone.

Segundus’s mouth was suddenly very dry.

He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out save a faint croak from the back of his throat.

Childermass continued, still teasing: “I have here in my bag three books of magic that you had professed great interest in reading, and you have not once asked me if you can take a look before they disappear into Norrell’s labyrinth forever.”

Segundus abruptly regained the use of his voice. “Of course! Oh, sir, I would be very grateful if-"

His eyes grew very wide, and he reached eagerly for the ancient copy of Navigation by Crow that Childermass was just in the act of removing from his leather travel bag.


	12. Epilogue

**August 1817**

Segundus had woken earlier than this, and for much less exciting reasons, but as he stood outside the door to Starecross’s library he couldn’t help but yawn against the back of his hand.

He could hear a rhythmic knocking from inside, and then Childermass’s voice saying something, and then a harsh outburst as if he had stubbed his toe and sworn at the pain.

Though he had promised to wait until signalled, Segundus was on the point of going in anyway when the door swung ominously open, revealing the still-shadowy library beyond.

He entered with a little trepidation, and soon made out Childermass’s equally shadowy silhouette against the grey south-facing windows. Childermass reached out and put his hand on Segundus’s shoulder, drawing him alongside. He manoeuvred him gently into place, and then, without speaking, bade him look down the length of the room, three sides lined with books, and the fourth just beginning to show the morning light through the glass.

Segundus looked. There seemed to be nothing out of place - the sparsely-filled shelves had the same books as ever, the carpet was as worn, that particular shelf would need to be repaired before it would hold the weight of the books he hoped to add. He began to think of everything that still needed to be done in two short months, and he sighed fretfully.

Childermass caught his eye and shook his head, indicating that Segundus should look again, and perhaps turn his head this way, and look _just so_ -

Segundus felt his ears growing hot at Childermass’s casual touches to his neck, shoulder and forehead. He was not used to this yet, perhaps never would be used to this. Endeavouring not to become distracted again, he moved as indicated, and gasped as the magical effect he was being nudged towards suddenly unfolded. The library, a smallish, shabby room, suddenly seemed to double, triple, increase fourfold in size, as if it had been placed in a hall of mirrors. He stepped forward hesitantly, the effect did not disappear, and he was in fact able to walk into the dim, shadowy space. The new shelves were empty, but he noted with a small laugh that the broken shelf had also been duplicated, there were now four broken places to mend.

He turned to Childermass, his delight showing plainly on his face. “Oh John, what have you done? Where are we now?”

“In the library,” was the laconic reply, but Childermass’s grin betrayed his real excitement.

“Well, yes, of course, but where is this extra space? Have you magically transformed another room, or is this Faerie? Or somewhere else? When you asked to use the library for magical experimentation, I rather thought you meant you would experimenting in it, not upon it!”  
  
Childermass laughed: “I admit that I am not quite sure where we are, but it is nowhere dangerous, I can assure you, and none of Starecross’s rooms have been sacrificed as a result. I have been practicing enlarging spaces, and in hiding them. Now that you have seen the trick of it, you will always see the library as it is now, much enlarged. We will be able to restrict access to the majority of the books to only those who have need to use them, a security measure as well as a check on the more impulsive sort of student.” He grew more serious in tone, and continued: “This library was a handsome enough size for a private house, but if you are to have a school here, you will need more room for books.”

“Books!” exclaimed Segundus, “We have precious few of those!”

Childermass caught him by the elbow and drew him close in the gloom. Segundus felt the blush creeping back. He felt his hair being brushed back, Childermass’s face very close to his.

“When you asked me to stay here and help you with your school-”

“-our school-”

“-and I saw this library, I vowed to fill it fourfold with all the books you could ever need. All the books I had prevented you from getting in the first place, all the books you could ever need to teach all the simpleminded gentleman’s sons and canny Yorkshire lads that will flock to you to be taught.” His voice had dropped very low, and become very quiet.

"Mr Childermass, I think that is the most romantic thing that anyone has ever said to me," he replied, and was rewarded with a soft chuckle.

With a sigh Segundus allowed himself to be kissed in the dusty, magic-tinted gloom of the Starecross library.

*

Charles had been down to the village to collect the post, so a small bundle of letters accompanied the rolls and coffee that would suffice as breakfast until the first term began in September into the morning room. Segundus yawned as he opened the topmost letter with his butter knife. He had a busy morning ahead of making lists: lists of things to be bought, things to be sold, servants to be hired, furniture to be brought back out of storage and everything else that would be needed to finally fulfil Starecross’s destiny as a school. Quite apart from his lack of sleep and morning excitement, he was still rather delicate after his time spent with one foot in faerie and the other in a madhouse.

Childermass came into the morning room, looking a lot more sprightly than Segundus thought he had any right to. He spied the latest list sticking out of Segundus’s pocket and he nimbly snatched it up, Segundus hardly noticing as he peered blearily at the letter in his hand.

“Another promising pupil,” Segundus said to Childermass at length, handing him the letter also and getting started on opening the next.

“Now that you are helping me instead of hindering me, I find we get along very quickly.” He smiled up at Childermass, who put a hand on Segundus’ shoulder as he read.

“You have written a very ambitious book list for me,” he replied, smiling back and pocketing said list. “You must think me capable of miracles.”

“If I can ask miracles of anyone it must surely be you,” Segundus said as he opened the next letter from his bundle. There was another letter, separately sealed, wrapped up inside it.

He had put his hand over Childermass’s, holding it in place on his shoulder and thereby not allowing him to leave or sit down. Childermass reached over him to pick up a roll and attempt to pour himself a cup of coffee. He very soon gave this up as a bad job and gently extricated his hand, giving Segundus’s shoulder a gentle squeeze as he did so.

He took his coffee cup and roll out of the room with him, thinking to begin his hunt for the books Segundus wanted (some of which he would be hunting down for the second time) straight away. He sat down in his own small study in order to pen letters, some cajoling in tone, some friendly and some threatening. Thus he passed the morning hours away, only emerging when his stomach let him know he needed more sustenance than the hasty roll he had stolen from Segundus’s plate hours before.

He wandered through Starecross, for now so silent, soon to be a lively seat of magical learning, until he found Segundus still sitting in the morning room, now with a blanket over his shoulders and his letters spread out in front of him on the table. One of the maids must have taken the coffee service away.

“Ah, Mr Seg- John, I see you have become distracted. Or did you mean to spend the whole day here?” Childermass asked, but just at that moment Segundus drew in a great, shaky breath that indicated clearly that he had been weeping. Childermass, alarmed, came into the room and was at Segundus’s side in a moment.

“What is it?” Childermass asked, placing his hand on Segundus’s arm. “You have had bad news?”

“Oh, John, it is nothing I did not expect, one day or another, but it is sad news. My friend Jane, you remember Miss Austen? Her sister Miss Cassandra Austen writes to tell me that- that Jane has died. Her sister was with her to the last. They have buried her in Winchester Cathedral.”

He handed Childermass the letter, in which Miss Austen had written to apologise for the lateness of her writing, that she had been going through her sister’s effects and writing to all of her correspondents, and that she was sorry if Mr Segundus had already heard this news through other means, and she enclosed an unsent letter, written to Mr Segundus by Jane in her final weeks, but not sent. Segundus handed this to Childermass next, placing his hand over his eyes.

Childermass read:

_My dear friend John,_

_I am sorry that this letter comes after such a long silence. I have read your last letter to me many times, and I find it more wonderful and surprising every time. It is amazing to me that you and I should live to see such things. It makes me quite furious to think that I didn’t take an interest in magic when we were young, so that I might do something useful or interesting, now that it seems even the hobbyist magician is finding flowers in his shoes and blackbirds in his coat pockets._

_It reminds me, John, of that party we attended in Bath, Mrs Wharton’s soirée, remember when your friend purchased my father’s books. They were rare magical tomes, were they not? Does your friend still have them? In fact, I recall that your friend was rather an interesting, dashing sort. Do you know him still? I hope that you do, he seemed very much the sort of friend it would be good for you to keep.  
  
Do you remember we all had our fortune read? Or perhaps it was after you had left. I recall you were not in the room at the time. There was such mirth, your friend was very witty about it. I wonder if it all came true?_

_I shall tell you what mine said. I have not spoken of this since that night. When my turn came, your friend made a very grave face and told me that I must be ready to take the bad with the good, if I wished to continue. I bade him do so, and he told me in a low voice that I will not have a long life, but that my writing will be known long after I am gone. The former I have long known, but I must admit that the latter has been of great comfort to me in difficult times._

_Things are rather difficult now, so reply to me quickly please, tell me of all the magic you are doing, and plan to do. Tell me about your friend, and ask him if he has anything else he can tell me. Will I be known in other lands than these?_

_Forgive my silly ramblings, John. I pray that we will meet again soon, and you will be able to tell me of your adventures in person._

_Your devoted friend_

_Miss Jane Austen_  
  


“You must think me very sentimental. Indeed, I believe I am, for I cannot seem to take these things in stride no matter how often they occur,” Segundus said sadly, sniffling a little.

Childermass let the letter fall from his hands onto the table. He stood, tugging Segundus’s hands up until he too was standing, and wrapped his arms around him. He pressed Segundus’s head to his shoulder and held him tight for a few minutes.

“Do you remember that silly party?” Segundus mumbled into Childermass’s neckcloth, “It was so thrilling to me to be able to speak with you, to learn your opinions…”

“…and to finally get a chance to read some of Mr Norrell’s books.” finished Childermass.

Segundus gave a sob that could almost have been a laugh, and Childermass loosened his hold a little, but didn’t quite let him go.

“You know I have dreams about that book, Navigation by Crow. I have never read anything else like it. It seems to have left all sorts of strange shades and images in my mind,” Segundus said, “It gave one the feeling that it could be read for a thousand years and never be gotten to the end of."

He rubbed his cheek a little on Childermass's shoulder, then straightened up, breaking their embrace and pecking Childermass lightly on the cheek.

"Thank you John, I am quite alright." He cleared his throat. "Now, if you have finished with the book list..?"

Childermass held his hand out and was rewarded with another list in Segundus's neat hand. He scanned it quickly.

"Pig shed, cow shed, stables, outbuilding, folly?" he read quizzically.

"Yes, all the buildings will need either a useful purpose or to be safely shut up. Will you help me?"

Childermass smiled. "For as long as you want me to."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is done! Thank you everyone who has encouraged me, left comments, been nice to me in any capacity, thank you Crossest Man for contributing so much, thank you to neuroatypicality for keeping me up till 4am most nights leaving plenty of writing time, thank you Jane Austen for being known long after your death, just thank you to the world for existing and being so lovely.


	13. I Still Dream About That Book

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crossest Man slept for a hundred years and dreamed of this.

-Navigation By Crow p.13/1-

(as reproduced in "The Endless Cousins of Else Humbracht" by Herr Doktor A.M. Verargerter)

_Wellspring of fables, of knowledge the shadow crows of lack_

_On quest to pay tribute; heiress under wings pinioned black_

_Readily quartered unto prophecy quarto read too,_

_Clever draughting winds a web, in the labyrinth a clew_

_Yearns the scholar for the kind of word the other guards stack_

_Bade to banquet shall the travellers find they cannot turn back_

_Egged on in preparation men of business plan anew_

_There professional courtesy shall good fortune ensue_

_And so to dance, cards, and song shall all ports call to drinkers_

_Guised as ancients and masters, shall wry Fates un-blind the hunt_

_In the carmine fog of heart's-blood the mystery lingers_

_Visions dealt of a future, one endangers by affront_

_A paradise hard wrought by skilful fingers_

_Now those threads wound, closely braided, does the pair exuent_

-I-

Friendly competition between Shelley and Smith gave us two Ozymandias, and while Horace' is the less frequently anthologised its more conventional scheme of rhyme meant it was more frequently parodied. The two Romantic considerations of impermanent legacies were published within a month of each other in 'The Examiner', and while their imprint on poesy is still felt centuries later they had a smaller but no less meaningful impact in London's other "journal of fancy".

'The Draper' served constituencies conflicting and harboured often quite strident discussions of magic and magicianship, its reputation as a gossip sheet ("that yellow curtain rag" (L. Hunt, Correspondence Vol.II, 1862)) had roots in a different conflict and while etymologists have for years sought to tie Pulitzer and Hearst's gutter fighting to 'The Draper' this seems a cyclic happening, a convergent evolution of scorn. In one of the March 1818 editions (frequent reprinting and editional overlaps make it hard to source exactly) an anonymous poet made light of one of the roots of the dominant drive of that decade's discourse; a dearth of magical texts. While Shelley and his boon companions were lightly tossing off ageless classics and in lakeside holidays galvanising whole genres into life, their bonhomie was stark counter to the viciousness of vizards - behind pseudonyms, and sometimes literally masked, England's magical inheritors were engaged in a struggle for access to magical texts that recalled tulip madness.

"I met a reader from an empty place

Who said: Once forests, trunkless empty heath

Sit shy of York. Near them, midst the lace,

The mills, stones, of village streets, beneath

Half twinkled star, the shear of thinning flocks

Tell of magicians, well those passions read

Which yet survive, scribed where no door knocks,

The map wound now hurt, fewer the streams that fed:

And on untrue milestones these words there crow:

'My name is Uskglass, raven among kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and know!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the manor

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The full and level shelves stretch far no more."

In the same pages as this poem are threats of violence, invitations to duel, entreaties, discussions of sums that veer from peppercorn to king's ransoms and (through historic context) back again, and, in stark contrast, a small advertisement on the unfashionable second page from a (stereotypically miserly?) Yorkshireman that states "no unreasonable price paid"* Yet what price was unreasonable? The sums that Norrell had been willing to pay had distorted the market, but perhaps not as much as his removal from it. With the library at Hurtfew gone, there could perhaps have only been speculation on what was left. As magic had been part of the War Against Napoleon it was not just gold that had been spent, but powder, even lives. Even as what one contributor to 'The Draper' termed the "ensorcelling gulls" squawked and scavenged (and were frequently rooked) another struggle emerged, seeking to define the borders of English magic in the absence of its primary cartographer, collector, and caretaker.

'The Draper', in particular its classified advertisements, form a key text in the associated ephemera of various texts' bibliarachnia. The title was not just a reference to the dividing line between magics literal and lime-lit, but a product of penury. Scared off by notorious incidents around the publication of texts of interest to magicians early editions were sometimes distributed upon mis-printed wallpaper. The inconstant (even inchoate) distribution of the periodical. Despite at one point having some three-score named subscribers smaller-editions and scandal sheets were sometimes distributed as pamphlets among the conjuror frequented coffee-houses of Regency London. Some of these dens of bean-fussing inequity were so littered with papers that enterprising street-vendors sold charms to patrons to protect them against fires both infernal and temporal. The floor of Lucius Day's place of business was said to rustle, and in a letter describing his quest to secure a particular copy of 'The Draper' to secure a Commonplace being offered Thomas Love Peacock cast himself as "an unlucky hunter hoping to track pray through the leavings of the spoor-house". His fondness for paying lavish sums for humdrum texts was more than off-set by the minor success of 'The Six Magicians', a comic play of his own devising based upon his verse collection 'The Magpies of Magic' (1814). While 'The Draper' managed to offend its sixty-something "patroens" when its printers found themselves short-cased as they attempted thanks in the 'sheepshead misprint' or 'fleur-de-dis' volume, it was observed that each of them (in various combinations) had attended performances of 'The Six Magicians'.

As with most comic works of the era modern readers are baffled when looking upon the overwhelming majority of the references as they are predicated upon topics of discussion that were so common as to be beneath documentation, as it always has been. In the handful that we can make sense of (beyond cheap shots at Yorkshire miserliness, despite the extent to which English magic was nursed in the North) one is of note. One of the ineffectual magicians is described as "more plum-duff than hum-duff". In Knight's "Britain Against Napoleon" there is brief discussion of the extent to which Admiralty (and Crown) out-sourced the procurement of magical material to its leading lights. Yet with Norrell seldom straying from study and Strange conjuring across the continent they did not do it themselves. Norrell is known to have had a 'Man Of Business' and the Army sought its own. The Martello Tower planned for Robin Hood's Bay was to have protected a receiving warehouse for plundered relics, and a barracks for detached elements of the 5th Battalion of the 62nd (Royal American) Regiment. These grognards were known as "Les Hommes D'Affaires". Their footprint on the British isles was limited, most accounts have them constrained to traditional military installations, docks, forts, and public houses. With similar efficiency "Les Hommes D'Affaires" was corrupted to "humduffers". There then followed the traditional back-formation from past-participles giving us "humduff", the act of (by guile, force of arms, or cunning) acquiring magical entities. The 'joke' had greater utility as a shibboleth than boffola - a celebrated tale of the Bow Street Runners has them identifying the subject of their hunt because he is the only one in the audience to laugh.

* The Draper, March 1818 and thereafter

> MAGICAL TEXTS NO UNREASONABLE
> 
> PRICE PAID LIST SVP S. ATHONITE
> 
> CO.TALBOT INN STAINCROSS YORKS

\- From: "Bell Book & Scandal: English Magic, Canon, and Controversy" by Roberta McAndrew

-II-

-Navigation By Crow p.13/2-

(as translated in "Sharp Scarlet Grasp" by F.C. Signora Corpia, PhD (Garnett College))

_Looking upon the two court chorus multitudinous_

_Leaves part afore glassy eyes back reflected luminous_

_An elegant broth gives no succour to Queens' watching flocks_

_How desires distort, soft bread as the always bitter rocks_

_So distance singing feathers carrion-tasters spurn flesh_

_Red spinel wonder shall feasts sunder, meat walks wheat un-thresh_

_Emperors, meek'll fore battle-snakes by lizard equal_

_Having spear-caught, crow perch made, rodents watch conflict sequel_

_Tell tales grounded closer than to oppose Amphitryon_

_Ere golden ass' whining widow claims uncouched the lion_

_Gambled as lambs windward wagerers their bravery the stake_

_O'er pole, ice blocks tantalise, a frozen way to betake_

_To hide midst that tracklessness, 'ware well the wolf of wounds' words_

_Sayings of witnesses given secret flight as the birds_

-II-

Konrad Peutinger (1454-1547) is known to historical and magical scholars for six works. His own library of antiquarian texts was notorious as the largest north of the Alps, but the 'siebenbucher' are a legend in themselves. As an adviser to Maximilian I he had the power (and wealth) to indulge in his passion for antiquities, but his responsibilities in Augsburg extended far into other realms.

He published the Tabula Peutingeriana, Conrad Celtes' discovery of a late antique world map of Roman roads as medieval copy showed routes from the Britain through to both India and Central Asia.

This was partnered with the Cornix Historiam Itineribus, "An history of the Crow Roads", like the Tabula this was not fully published for years, changing hands repeatedly. The span of the atlas is at least as great, but the mapping almost vexatious. While latterly geographers can from modern carriageway follow path of Praetorian paving, pedestrian least resistance, ephemeral aquatic onward intent subsequently subsumed by construction concrete.

He also published (as Das Krähennavigations) at least one of the bindings of 'Navigation By Crow'. Though little but mention of that text survives, some have argued that it is the missing ground between the maps and histories of the other 'siebenbuchs'.

He was first to print the Getica, Jordanes Late Latin "summary" of Cassiodorus greater work. This history of the Goths, no less than twice edited and once re-told, is as close as we have to a contemporary account. Yet it is in the elisions and potential revisions that this work finds closer cousins.

He also printed Paul's Historia Langobardorum. Six volumes in size (yet incomplete!) it is told from the point of view of a Lombard and follows them from legendary (and mis-spelled) Scandinavia through Frank conflicts and successive migrations. The Historia Langobardorum is not the only work to challenge the arithmetic of the 'siebenbuchs', as counted collectively it makes five and dickeried discretely it makes ten.

In either case, the problematic element is the Fatum Oratoratum, the history of the Fairy or the map of the faerie or both or neither. There are many topics that will bring Vienna's magical scholars to dash off angry missives but investors in ink would well to remember that it is disputed as to whether it is this or Das Krähennavigations that should be counted twice.

The Fatum features the names then known of Fairy and faerie - though where place and person begin and end (as discussed in Tour du Duché d'Hiver passim) is some measure of dispute. There is 'Lady Noon Averse' who when furthest from the sun's highest point cries thrice in the dark for more. There are the faceless eyes, that might be carved by the wind but watch nonetheless.

The identity of the last of the 'siebenbucher' is a matter of endless speculation. It is alleged, of course, that Norrell had a copy in Hurtfew, but until and unless its Erathosthenes tables a revelation this will be no more credible than rumour. It almost matters not that the seventh is unknown as the six that remain are themselves variously lost. It has been suggested that the 'siebenbuch' was destroyed as it was read, a 'liber ex mortuis' if you will. It has also been suggested that Peutinger had acquired the unfinished manuscripts of Heinrich Cornelius von Nettesheim, and that among them was a genealogy of Agrippa, king of Albalonga, descendant direct of the wolf-suckled twin sons of Amulius. Both Agrippae were rumoured to have secret knowledge that by means arcane they would impart to only one successor. Some have argued that a sufficiently magical text could be aware that it was being read and change itself accordingly - that twinned act of reading and rewriting is well-archived, but ironically unsupported by textual reference. It may be that the seventh book is not yet written (an initially idle hypothesis of W.Broad that has been seized upon in some quarters), but in the and for now it remains unknown.

\--Anathema to Zenodutus: Palimpsests And Lost Libraries In Northern Germany by S.R.Uhl

-III-

-Navigation By Crow p.13/3-

(ibid)

_Umbral staff on the threshold loiter lightly with intent_

_Doors that spurn keys do not speak 'friend' make the keep slowly fast_

_Night starling numinous, yet more numerous is bochord_

_Upon ornate rolls sit endless scrolls, each couched in their nooks_

_Gaze among the shelves, treasure-scholar delves, from end to start_

_Even endlessly, stacked listlessly, no tale lost too odd_

_Safe Athenaeum, storied owl-thing, blood-clawed this palace_

_Did the black freighter's followers make lighter their ballasts_

_Nor elevated shall the sails be wooden horse unshod_

_As ports in a storm, Pan's panopticon, low becomes art_

_Sow sand, see empty hand, second perspective baits all hooks_

_Sphere nacreous, to ire courteous, as crow follows sword_

_As eyes stare cross-sightedly, where things used to be, now past_

_Mindful husbandry, secretly, become famine's lament_

-III-

It was not just magic that Britain borrowed from Hurtfew. Monies from those mysterious holdings, the purchase of government debt as bonds, all served to bind English magic ever closer to the English state. (see 'Arrears Arise In Salt' by KS Robinson)

This unstoppable well of fortune was kept spinning by business Norrell himself never troubled with, an engine of commerce arcane that ran back and forth from York to London (at least!), feeding from and into the capitol(s) capital husbanded in trades he seemingly shied from. There was always money - enough indeed that the income he had at his disposal to acquire magical texts was sufficient to distort entire markets into febrile speculation and forgery.

So great was the wealth of the estate, so infamous was George III's malaise, and so mercenary was the competition for magical and martial favour in the anti-Napoleonic Empire that wags would note that the court was 'spur ryal' (a crown short of a sovereign) and Norrell himself was referred to in coded correspondence (undiscovered until long after the consequences of further scandal would have affected either Messrs. Drawlight or Lascelles) as 'the Guinea', one supposes not just because of the old family business but also because he always had a shilling more than the King.

J R Hartley gives context to the scale of the efforts in 'A line In The Sound' "as Dalrymple's hydrographers were assaying each nook and knoll of England's littoral margins Norrell's lexographers were acquiring each book and scroll of England's literal magic".

The Library Norrell assembled was impenetrable - we have, discussed passim, two, perhaps three accounts of its interior. The painter disappeared into obscurity, the fate of Strange is known already, and Mr Childermass doubtless had not only secrets but reasons to keep them. It was observed shortly after Hurtfew's disappearance that he bore upon him scratches and scars that seemed as magical writing - wounds inflicted by an unknown hand (if hand it was!) that marked him forever as a servant of the arcane. While magical education saw a resurgence, Norrell's household (such as it was) followed the house into obscurity. That they probably represented a reservoir of implicit magical knowledge (or at least passive understanding of magical practise) was not enough to bring them to the attention of a magical crowd that did not care for people but for texts.

In the period of Norrell's greatest power, attendant to the (re)birth of English Magic that we latterly abbreviate to 'the Enchantment', any number of actors were engaged upon the world-stage to secure entities magical. Not just texts, but relics, even creatures are alleged to have been wrestled to shadowy warehouses, bartered for on battlefields and in back-alleys, auctioned over and paid for thrice-fold, in coin and blood and soul. At Dalrymple's behest the Admiralty office had cartographers surveying the country for fear of French invasion, similar ordinances to survey laid the land for Martello's towers, and there was a corresponding fortification of the library at Hurtfew.

The completist tendency that Norrell was the greatest example of would (and some argue still does) poison English Magic for years. From an exterior perspective was there any difference to a text disappearing behind the Norrell Wall as never existing? One might pine after a forest one would never see, but with no route to it what separated a landscape unvisited from one theoretical, or fictional? The walls of Hurtfew's Labyrinth were so lined with texts that we can only guess as to their existence. Norrell though undoubtedly an avaricious collector may well have been a careful curator but was to no extent minded to an open catalogue. If there was a librarian at Hurtfew (and who would have had the time?) then he (they? undoubtedly not 'she') was not so minded as Pinakes. In his "tables" we have a record of some of what stood in Alexandria before the fire. For Hurtfew we have instead an absence (some have noted the lexical difference between 'tabling a subject' across the Atlantic Englishes). There are records of auctions that Norrell won, or were won on his behalf. There are records of auctions that others lost, and assumptions can be made for there. There are accounts of paramilitary operations in areas where magical collections were known to have been, and are now lost - Chateau du Phalecque, Peutinger's Eyrie, the Iberian 'crusade' described in Hendricks et al in 'Magic Castles of Spain'.

Norrell's shilling (supplementing, if not supplanting the King's) was enough to see men upon his business (let us not quibble about for whom the Crown sought such things) across the Continent. We know that Strange took select texts campaigning with him. It is believed that Sir Walter Pole had a stock of ostensibly magical texts to provide to wavering supporters. We have some of them, but they are (likely by design) incomprehensible. What might be ancient languages could be mis-prints, some bear the marks of fire and flame to suggest that they were acquired by direct action (and not auction).

Yet in this endeavour of collection arises a different question. The losses at Phalecque can be assayed through the billowing sales the family indulged in. The disposal of redundant texts (and copies, and likely forgeries) brought income to acquire more of each and all, but Norrell did not pass on his spares. His lack of fondness for duplication is well-noted - keen as he was to restore English Magic he was significantly less keen upon other English magicians. What happened to the volumes of which Hurtfew had a few?

In the essays collected as "Norrell's Shadow" there are two (conflicting) profiles of Norrell's man-of-business, J. Childermass. As factotum (and familiar? fairy servant?) of Norrell his influence is in many places indistinguishable from his companions, perhaps a lightness of touch, but how could we, at distance, determine the feel of one hand from another when our only measure is how the scale of history is tilted? Others against whom they brushed could doubtless tell us weft from weave, what would prompt an object to be left or them to leave.

The chatter of coffee-houses consumes far more of these works than one would expect, majesty and magic reduced to the narrowed horizons of the roastery. Yet they are no less useful, one must confess, for understanding how relations between parties various were, would, and did play(ed) out. In both '...Penny Universities' Aytoun Ellis (and, separately, Ben Johnson) there is discussion not only of Enlightenment's but Enchantment's roots in English coffeehouses. They cite references to 'coffee's contrarians' - emboldened by caffeine, sugar, in the febrile atmosphere of the meeting houses the bellicosity of the ale-house was replaced with a viscosity of ideas. Things stuck.

The notion of opposition is vital to understanding Norrell's counterparts - consider those three men delving into the public square as (each in their own way) avatars of English magic.

Gilbert Norrell, of course. -op- by Norrell's "shadow" - J.Childermass

-op-

Norrell's "enemy", J. Strange

Who is the fourth? Who then is the opposite of these opposites? Someone light, given to sharing knowledge, open? Spontaneous, and yet a secret power? There are several candidates, but one could stare cross-eyed at the list vainly. It seems improbable that such a man, this 'John Doe' could survive in an English magic for which they were undoubtedly too pure.

That matters not, save that this opposite had another effect, another intent. Where we have record of text after text vanishing behind the Norrell Wall, consumed by the Childermass Extinction, came a change. After the three named above themselves vanish from (such as they were visible to) the public eye, magical texts began to reappear. Small, scholarly editions, stepping stones, never a glut to the market but neither so few as to be impossible for those minded to acquire. Not only curated, but (later studies show), edited. Where were these works concealed? Whose are the shadowy hands that set the stepping stones to fully flower the Enchantment?

That is not the business of this work, in truth - others will carry that torch onward. Where there is interest is that question of concealment. If everything that was in the library of Hurtfew was lost, and there is little doubt, what of the labyrinth's marginalia? The Minotaur dwelled within the maze, but there stood a little distant Mino's palace. What was held in the nets of Knossos? Under whose black sails did voyagers return? The Labyrinth did not spring fully formed - who was Daedalus, Pasiphaë, the angered Poseidon? What text was the bull so beautiful that man, queen, god each desired it for themselves alone?

That the centre of the web was lost did not mean that it could not yet catch flies. Indeed, it has been pre-supposed that it was Norrell who directed it all, but perhaps it is the carp and not the cob that we must ponder. The lake has a life (viz Gaietic hypotheses) of its own, independent of the fish it feeds and their size. For all the beaverish intensity of its construction, the loss of the dam of Hurtfew was perhaps not just a surge but an opportunity for resurgence.

There is clear evidence that even after Norrell and Napoleon both were away to their differing exiles the motion of their apparatus was perpetuated. The military reorganisation and architectural impositions of the French Emperor marked both society and landscape as much as did the master of Hurtfew. Save that where Bonaparte left triumphal colonnades upon which would march a parrot-like pageantry Gilbert left type-printed columns upon which would squabble a crow-like chaos. The market he had distorted like the moon the tides had, in his absence, reverted to rock-pools, some fatted with plenty, others soon evaporating. These pockets were nourished in coffee-shops, colleges, and their isolation broken when some hermit cribbed a note to another. The trades were rarely as organised as those of the arthropod kingdom.

In the scavenging attempts were made to profit from all. For every poor publishing house that sought to democratise the process of community conjuring with commonplaces, others sought to forge for themselves grander fortunes. The quality of the baited hooks were various, and for some there were only the scraps. Consider two advertisements of articles for sale:

> ODYSSEY OF DAMAGED BINDING HAS
> 
> PERHAPS BEEN PRACTISE TARGET
> 
> FROM THE CONTINENT ESTATE SALE
> 
> ALSO HAVE CATTLE STOCK BOOKS
> 
> NO REASONABLE OFFER REJECTED
> 
> -M. J. CORNEILLE, TEMPLE COWLEY

> _KARDIA AETHERICA_ IN REVISED
> 
> TRANSLATION COUNTERPOINT WITH
> 
> ORIGINAL SECRETS OF THE CASTLE
> 
> BE WARY OF PALE REPRODUCTIONS
> 
> DRAWN FROM PRIME SOURCES WITH
> 
> CAREFUL EXPERIMENTATION, COPY
> 
> RELEASED WITH ROYAL PERMISSION
> 
> SINGLE TEXTS AUCTIONED MONTHLY
> 
> APPLY TO M.L.DAY c/o 'FlOWERS'
> 
> HACKNEY, TO RESERVE AS BIDDER

The pitiful dregs did not make it to the coffee-houses for auction, Mr Corneille did perhaps get a price but that text would likely have been more useful to him as kindling. Copies of the KARDIA AETHERICA still command great prices, such was the culture of secrecy around these translations (as with Peutinger) that the text, though sourced from the same jewelled tablets, varied wildly. Pursuit of the KARDIA was not limited to magical scholars, the original was a complex narrative carved with indelible sharpness into thin leaves of gold, those sheets embossed into patterns that supported jewels. So coveted were those arcane treasures that, having raised funds from various parties to display them, it was discovered that the vault in which they were in had been plundered. Suspicion was wide, eventually coalescing upon the theory that some motley of soldiers fresh from similar activity abroad had engaged in a thaumaturgical theft.

  
  


The allusion was made contemporaneously, the 'crab-bucket of competition' was used often to describe the attempts of minor magicians to make national names for themselves. The world only had room, however, for one Strange, one Norrell, and even then only briefly. The big fish had taken the pond with them, but who knew what larger fish lurked in the sea?

  
  


-excerpt from Regency Minotaur: The Hurtfew Labyrinth and the Norrell Wall by Hubert PF d’Ecosse, 2006

-IIII-

-Navigation By Crow p.13/4-

(ibid)

_Rowed the war-fighters the whale-road in their conqueror cog_

_Each from their post heard the death-sands, hold filled full keel to crow_

_Did the mist that concealed them rise the shade-winds blooming sail_

_Lashed and King-sped, venturing vessel, swift pulled from the fog_

_In motley flock's feathered talk, murder trades-men unseen go_

_Heard crowd bequested castle, riddled in glass, to there hail_

_Crypt-creeping carefully, each lock a key, bone to a dog_

_Watch there sleight of foot, hidden pursuit, and precious cargo_

_Out and inwardly, frightfully, illumination a veil_

_Not un-lightly, larcenously, two betaken prologue_

_Knapped flintily, hills hide foe in lee, the footpads then clog_

_Down the black way points the raven's beak, courtly epilogue_

_Now on fish-walk trade their treasures, inky blood-kegged shadow_

_Afore the burnt-lamp midst ruins doth the falcon-moth quail_

-IIII-

The problem for any Historian of English Magic is that it is untidy, and even as threads were wound together strange forces sought to unravel them. The notion of English magic as a thing that could be whole and complete, every i dotted and t crossed, every shelf filled in order, is at once appealing and anathema.

We must first wrestle with the idea that there was an 'England', that magic was a consequence of some supernatural Peace of Westphalia - that here was English magic, a border, a sea and there a French magic, a Belgian, and so forth. Yet within English Magic are or were there not Cornish, Welsh, Cumbrian, an Insular Scots magic, a magic of the potteries, divers dialects of divination and disenchantment? There are places magical of course. Viz the trionfi, probably in one form Italianate, usually known as 'The Cards of Marseilles'. There are places where magic comes from, places where magic returns, places were magic had been, is now not. There are places erased by magic, others concealed, yet more connected.

Once you have identified your place to be a gate-keeper one must first build a fence, and even that is by definition a porous border. It can only keep out things of the size and shape envisioned - a wire may be barbed to steer cattle away, a wooden wall tall enough to deter deer, but no palisade would prevent passerine perching. Birds travel where they will, whatever men might hope - magic is not the only thing that defies fences.

In the war against Napoleon even as Dalrymple's hydrographers were assaying each nook and knoll of England's littoral margins Norrell’s lexographers were acquiring each book and scroll of England's literal magic. It was not just enough to have but to stop others from having. What might be added to a German Confederal magic? Holy Roman Imperial Magic? Was there an element that made a magic Prussian? Germanic? Norse?

Worse still was the prospect of Republican Magic - revolutionary magics were aplenty, every strange departure from written method was an act against system and order. For every spell that demanded eight points of action chaos would do it with a feeling in the humours. The Empire was not yet at its height. Wellesley's statue did not yet stand in Glasgow, least of all a traffic cone upon it. Yet the Empire knew that there were threats within it - emboldened by the arcane who knew what Raj, country, city, or sect, would seek to defy London and the Crown?

At one of the few parties that Norrell attended (an event so rare but compelling that there are multiple accounts of the incident) he was apparently asked "is it that what you know to be the boundaries of English magic, or what you know is the boundaries of English magic?". The three most detailed accounts give us three slightly overlapping answers. There are others that can be discounted, however apposite - "of course the door was unlocked" marries historical fact to a music-hall jest. Norrell's biographers have wrestled with the three answers for some time, as have scholars of magic - first, "of course", is an unhelpful answer (naturally!), but "no, of course, yes..." and "yes, of course, no..." are understood to have carried on for some time into magical minutiae but such was the press of bodies (Norrell is understood to have absented himself and been found in the library of the house across the road) that we have no record of the actual text of the answer. We could wrestle with the potentials as easily as count angels dancing on the head of a pin.

In the second volume of three of her Biography of Wellington, "Eagle among Crows" Elizabeth Harman Pakenham (Countess of Longford) quotes what a conversation between Arthur Wellesley and his Merlin. Here is perhaps a more useful answer as well to the question of what English Magic was. When he asked of J. Strange if magic could be used to kill a man the answer came: “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.”

Strange might not have been a soldier but he was of the right sort - that Waterloo was far short mathematically (never mind geographically) of having been won on the playing fields of Eton was neither here nor there. Norrell's estate and wealth made him a keeper of English magic, but it was Strange's temperament that made him amenable to the British state. So too perhaps their magic - Norrell had everything he ought, but Strange felt right.

Yet feelings poor gaolers make, however imprisoned we may seem in their grip. While Norrell may have decided what was English magic, and Strange did magic as an Englishman would, it was at Hurtfew that magic, perhaps, became English. To be vaulted in the labyrinth was to have been made part of the canon. No matter perhaps that the assemblage was an unnatural one - the head of a bull on the body of a man, a bear with an owl's face, a lion with an eagle's beak and broad feathery sweep. To have every book not in circulation in Norrell's library - was that different than it not existing? Norrell had his gate - everything he considered to be magic tucked safely within it, or watched for, bid upon, and otherwise provisionally acquired. Set and secure, pinned to shelves like the crypt of some literary lepidopterist, until the gadfly Strange started to make new magics, transformative, with only the loosest rooting in the texts Norrell considered sacred, had worked so hard to preserve. This new magic was undeniable, yet also antithetical to Norrell's understanding (so obviously so that KH Marx used their simultaneous (mutual?) removal as an example of synthesis through annihilation.

Consider for a moment the dictionary - the OED three, Coleridge, Trench, and Furnival (perhaps inspired as spellers) sought to trap the entirety of the English language in one volume. Orthographically brief, just six-and twenty (and per se and?), but lexically transfinite - they set boundaries as to what was considered English. The letter 'K' has, by time of printing, a higher percentage of words of foreign origin than any of its five-square siblings. Does that make the letter 'K' more English or less? Does it matter? Consider Norrell in his assemblage - did he (or his staff) look gift kangaroos in the mouth? Sauce their acquisitions with ketchup? Wrap them in cloth of khaki and hope his publication kleptomania would not earn punishment karmic?

Even as Norrell was fortifying the walls that defined his magic he was called to questions about 'fairy magic'. As with the territoriality, there were weaknesses - the notion that there is or was or could be 'a' magic of faerie, and not that each and all of those principalities had their own argots - or indeed that all fairy magic was exactly the same from a certain point of view. The 'miracle of the Minster' might have been source of an idle wish that English magic be preserved - in word at Hurtfew, in deed wherever Strange was charged, and in practise? Are you the reader not engaged in that act?

Fairy magic was predicated upon restatement, on lexical trickery, on the meaning unintended. Was all magic fairy? Were all their doings? Eratosthenes as mathematician gave us his sieve for finding primes, but to him is attributed another logician's tool - the stone shear. His suggestion is that where no other inputs explain something it's as well to suggest it was a consequence of fairy magic. 'Writing' at a time when magic was still mostly a tool of the Gods, his contention was that only another supernatural entity (and one with no fear of oblivion) would attempt a Promethean heist. There is a tale of a farmer's wife who wished her husband was less social, enthusiastic, but she did not see the humour in finding him chained to a rock while geese devoured his liver. To be sanguine about the Olympian tendency to the awe-ful and awful would require nerves of steel, cold-bloodedness, or indeed a constitution that was antithetical to both.

What of Norrell then? Did he wish for control of all English magic, and become trapped in his own success? Was there some critical mass, some achievement in his great gathering, some manner of cost that rotated Hurtfew manor and its lands ninety degrees to reality upon some arcane axis? Did he discover there was somewhere else where he could be sure of its totality? W Broad suggests that the fairy restate themselves, when they have had enough they go back to try again. For Norrell the bustle may have been (historic precedent) too much, and so he retreated ultimately into his library. Perhaps that was his ultimate aim - Norrell retains ultimate control of English magic because we cannot know its boundaries without him. He may have struck blows for its cause, but all we are left with are the bruises, the scars.

-excerpt from A Line in the Sound: The 'catch' of English Magic by J R Hartley

-V-

-Navigation By Crow p.13/5-

(ibid)

_Yellow-backed they flew the crimson copse, the heartwine-stained wood_

_The ox-text rustled with them as they plowed a course fast steered_

_Heavy the island with enscrolled forest, leaves without lend_

_Gaze among the shelves, treasure-scholar delves, from start to end_

_In hasted escape, travellers two, behind them spark of fire_

_Might day become night, such dread height, plume attending pyre_

_Embered island, blackened beach, falling ash where once inspired_

_Yew consumed, book transformed, shards where once was unwritten clay_

_Ketch to a new harbour to moor set the anchor to weigh_

_Red behind them coloured past and before them only grey_

_Over white-topped sea bound north of black country, new course to stay_

_Wood claws of ravens grab at the clouds themselves snatching day_

_Eery perched on fells falling steep stood the lost keep made good_

_Ventured within, readers twin, find ox-text with cord through-speared_

-V-

There is a 'joke', frequently attributed to Christopher Drawlight (though more likely belonging to another (likely T.L.) peacock), about a student of English Magic who must escape from a library. That its alleged author was no alchemist does not mean he was incapable of vitriol, and it is easily supposed that this vessel of humour was a pre-emptive retort. There's mention in correspondence from a variety of parties, months (and unfashionably early seasonally) before the first occurrence credited there. It matters not, he was ever eager to repeat that which worked, and possessed of a courtly cunning could bend the 'joke' to target any subject of his ire. It is often conjectured that the first subject by the anonymous author was Mr Norrell himself, though who was both close enough and incautious enough to mock England's Minotaur is likely never to be known. No real matter - the truth of the joke is in the telling.

The student of English Magic is set a challenge. They will be taken into a library of magical texts, and then must leave the room. They have time to prepare before they walk into the room and the door shut behind them. The ones that have survived bear the usual mixture of the public school bully, anything counter to clubbability is grounds for attack. Those tainted by industry would bring trade tools to the task - shovels, picks, candlesticks for those who are miners or merchants. Those of the manse will refer to old patterns, the "tower of Bible" is one of the few genuinely wry conceits in a wholecloth assault on men of the cloth. One particularly wealthy dilettante is supposed to have packed only the essentials for this escape from the keep of kenning, viz "larks' tongues, waist-coat (brocade), pipe tobacco, hair oil (pomade)".

There then follow, much in the pattern of jokes at the expense of the cladistically othered (class, race, ethnicity &c) a series of comic events, most predicated upon the significant change in context. Pit props and shovels will hold up books, but no matter how far scholarly colliers dig there are more. The millionaire magician eventually starves (the bitterness attributed to the gold would seem more a product of jealousy than chemistry). The pattern is always the same, a defeated student, and then the 'punchline'; "of course, had they checked, they would have found the door unlocked".

In the 'Tour du Duché d'Hiver' (par Mme. C.E. Bartlett) there is a discussion of a "fairy tale". Though there are parts that recall the dizziness imparted by Grimm re-tellings it is the structure of the piece that is most compelling. The Tower of the Duchy of Winter contains a room in which is a complete model of the Tower of the Duchy of Winter - and within that model a complete model and so on in what we would now call a fractal. In the story the Duke explains how he came to build the tower, how he made decisions about the placement of stone and stem, mortar and mirror. How he decided to have bricks start, and then stop. A tale of fanciful architecture that ends when the Duke becomes ill. The page turned, a new Duke tells the story of how he came to build the tower, how he made decisions about the placement of joist and jute, of wall and hall. A tale of fanciful architecture that ends when the Duke becomes ill. The page turned, and so forth. Each time the new Duke has yet another serf, the tower a little taller, the tale a little twistier, the perspective a little more complex. Each time the illness returns, first a single pock, in a later round a brace, a dozen, a score, each time like flocking birds at once more numerous and closer to being unnumbered, until, at last, the rash, omen of another new version of the same tale.

There have been discussions of the skeletal tales that lie beneath the repeated meat of fictions. Fewer have considered that the flesh above them might itself tell a story, one where repetition falls. Theories about fairy populations have a handful of these, but Trubshaw & Bartle in "Magic's Un-named Denizens - First Volume" advanced another. A concise version of their thesis is possible, but they (somewhat ironically) argued that simplicity was the enemy of accuracy. Independently in his "Letters of the Apennine Opinicus" Nicolas Bontyng made it an intersection of high and low culture.

TRIGGER: "And that's what I've done. Maintained it for 20 years. This old broom's had 17 new heads and 14 new handles in its time."

SID: "How the hell can it be the same bloody broom then?"

("Heroes & Villains", Only Fools & Horses Christmas Special XIII, British Broadcasting Corporation, w. J.Sullivan, d. T. Dow, p. G. Gwenlan, Transmitted 25.12.1996)

Replace the object, the owner, and the means of indicating possession and you have the Ship of Theseus (likely pre-saging Heraclitus).

Trubshaw & Bartle argue that not only are these ideas literally the same beneath the differing expressions, but that the question itself is a piece of fairy magic, and a synecdoche thereof. Citing also Epimenides' paradox (some variation upon "this statement is a lie") as an example of this, that the 'riddle' represents a bargain (vexedness is traded for wisdom). Since these statements can co-exist they can both be true. This has echoes both of quantum physics and the Visigothic riddle-book "Feuer in der Tiefe" by Vinge the Fifth.

In the writings of Ma. J. Strange there is mention made of a distinctively-coiffed fairy who when asked of another described them as a "Low Person". That of Col Tom Blue, but therein lies the key. The Cornix Historiam Itineribus connects the Cotswolds to Kurdistan, and Oberon is also Ol Beran - "the religion of the ram". Though as 'starling' Oberon shepherded the then-uncrowned John Uskglass in other tales "Oberon the curl-horned", "the fleece-stealer", "the wolf-gouger", "the wool-wearer" is more commonly associated with more grounded flocks. There is precedent elsewhere for seeking parallels in labels. (See this volume's appendices II-XI previously collected as "Quill cuts fine"). They advance the argument that commonalities in names, previously assumed to be familial or familiar, are in fact indicative of an individual in concurrent, consecutive, and even contradictory guises.

We have at least three names - and perhaps two more -

* J.Strange's kenning for him - The gentleman with the thistledown hair

* Col Tom Blue - an Officer, 'Tom' Irish for tuft, 'Blew' Cornish for hair.

* Dick-come-Tuesday - by similar roots/routes - from Germanic rather than Brythonic tongues, thick-combed warrior (Tuesday is dedicated to Tyr)

* Herr Bristol-Cove - (homophonous, locative, person) as firmly as our reading of the Fairy is rooted in the canon of English magic, it is to some extent only due to the acquisitive impulse that drew most-European magic there. This figure appears in several accounts of magical misadventure in and around the coastal Hanseatic League. Allegedly trained by His Majesty's Navy, this navigator participated in several enterprises all of which had unexpected consequences. A Russian freighter from Narva was hired to transport Romanian soils, a voyage where profit was only possible because no other crew survived to claim wages. Another itinerary dawdled amidst the Faroes around the solstice, charting a rambling course that was eventually attributed to another crewmember, a "French-man" who met a dark end in Hartlepool.

* Huscarl of Holyhead - this tale of a Viking naturalised to Wales who spent liberally but left no trace has the tinge of fairy. That later archaeology found a barrow empty of grave goods is just indicative of a mystery tumulus. Stories of the Huscarl kept a menagerie that included a Barbary cat held in check by a jewelled whip ought to have been backed by artefacts outwith tales. There is no lithic evidence of a stone shear sharp enough to cut breath, though that tool seems so obviously a metaphor that we must look to tales of bridge-holding and foes slain in droves to see that there might have been an edge of truth to it. Latter studies by the Hamilton chair of Oxbridge's Magdelen (e) College(s) in "The Lion That Withstands the Hoard-Rope" suggest that a slew of 'missing' treasures in the areas tombs can be attributed to them never really existing. Citing Occam in his theorising around the probability of a kurgan-minded kleptomaniac or that the torc-dungeons had held only fairy gold he states of competing explanations that "there can be only one".

Though the truth of Strange's record of the gentleman's 'denial' is unimpeachable, the offer to emulate is not met with a 'no' but a 'low'. The fairy have a reputation for always telling the truth, albeit not always in ways that are reliable and unequivocal. Then there is the question of dimensionality - just because he's the same person doesn't mean he's the same person.

These three are known to different people as different people, but so too was the Duke of the Winter Tower. In the Fatum Oratoratum are the siblings River-Crossed, River-Crossed-Twice, and River-Crossed-Thrice. Thrice is the oldest, avoiding the mistakes made by his younger brothers to amass favour, fortune in the literal sense - as if the weft of the loom of Fate was no surprise. If we follow Hartley's assertion that the essence of fairy magic is restatement then what greater manifestation would be restatement of self? Tales of fairy balls have time passing in unusual ways, of guest-lists that do not match the lists of guests. Nearly every tale of fairy dealing revolves around mistake. Where participants have foreknowledge they make different mistakes - the waves of prophecy may rise and fall but fall they will.

In her career Mme. Bartlett was latterly of St Victoire where in histories despite not being a member of any order she is called 'The Canoness'. Her book of names is understood to be at once derivative of and inspiration to the Fatum Oratoratum, but we know only what she kept. The decisions made about the names of fairy worth recording mean that centuries hence we still discover new individuals centuries gone. Like fossils they have ever been there, buried in strata undiscovered to test theories when discovered. Why the Fatum (or Bartlett's copy) was found there is more of a puzzle logistical than theoretical - the Abbey was wholly concerned with the search for truth and the truth of search.

What came of the fairy in question is unknown. Perhaps some latter scholar will discover them anew, or perhaps they found a way to make a fresh and final mistake. The absence may be of centuries or anonymity. Note that The Raven King was also 'starling', and overlapping and not with his apprenticeship in faerie was Coleman Grey (fig. lit. "A darker dove...").

We cannot be certain, but we know where we can be uncertain. It is perhaps an echo of the (lost) Library at St Victoire where the friars collected only stories that purported to reveal where the Christ-chalice was kept. While its shelves were full there the order was certain of everywhere the grail was not. Once afire (as documented in Dr. A.T.'s "Callimachus Later Losses") the unknown became doubly so. Imagine though if once knowledge was collected it could be used again? Then consider the irony of prophecy - knowing what is going to happen may change what is going to happen, foreknowledge may be a dark fate rather than a salvation. Yet there is a term in eight or more ancient works on the fairy that translates as "self-dealing". What fairer (or fairier?) bargain could be struck than one that garnered personal advantage at one's own expense? What could be more maliciously miraculous than to both un- and re-do? What greater torment (or pleasure?) to return to the beginning and see things unfold again?

-Kings & Queens of the Underground Realm - WMA Broad, East Slope Chair, U of Sussex

-VI-

-Navigation By Crow p.13/5A-

_If one should in wilderness be lost_

_Take the path that asks smallest cost_

_As water its own level shall find_

_Mountains shall not stop you heights behind_

_Ravines labyrinth, trapped in dead end deep_

_Or consider instead the course crows keep_

_Fly! Strive! Struggle! Push against make new!_

_See the unstraight course betwixt points two_

_No laurels crown the hand not scratched_

_As the thorn and the rose are matched_

_Reach for things lost, feel them apart_

_The seed is not ending but start_

_Sharp scarlet grasp as blood to flower_

_Inevitable, implacable, as rooks to the tower_

-VI-

The spread of printing followed patterns well established in magical history with the usual mixture of avarice, betrayal, consanguinary secrecy and so forth. It is impossible to understate the extent to which mechanical reproduction of occult texts was perceived as a threat by authorities temporal, spiritual, and, indeed, magical. Where previously scholars of magic had to negotiate visits (and arduous journeys) to others to copy spells from one another's books the script(orum) had changed. The difficulties of these were such that they consumed resources equivalent to sending a knight on Crusade. In "Cannes Trips and Post-"Cards of Marseilles" - Magical Pilgrimage in Pre-Revolutionary France", thaumogeographer extraordinaire Honoré D'Equipe (Reims) quotes from a 14th century interlocutory comedy - "what is the questing beast of a magician with poor hand-writing? A draught-horse".

With a long history of suppressing the spread of knowledge various powers in Europe took actions against the creeping poison of printing. See Honoré's thaumogeographic collaboration 'Wise Blood' with the flâneur E O'Connor for a full index thereof. Suffice to say that now not only did texts need to be found and safeguarded, but the means of making more.

One of the greater challenges was securing type - there were arguments that only letters sanctified with holy water would not print magical texts (well documented in 'Baptismal Fonts' by P.Emeritus III) - and others that those letters would make sling-stones that would slay any supernatural creature. There are discussions of etched plates with secret sigils, arcane maps, but most of the study is on the printing and the texts so produced.

What interested Konrad Peutinger (and latterly S.Uhl of Oklahoma's Arcadia Institute) was the changes to how these texts were collected. With a magical text the act of binding can be just that - a printed folio could be dangerous in the wrong order, there was no obligation for magic to give quarter. Where type-set pages were brought together features of their earlier versions might be lost. The cruft of reproduction sometimes added new meaning, but more often than not it obfuscated it. Peutinger was not averse to challenges, however, and with Imperial resource (and personal fortune) behind him could strive to meet them. He commissioned engravings for the Fatum Oratoratum from several sources, and had the plates circulated between a number of printers until he had combinations he was happy with. Those plates themselves became the target of acquisition over the centuries, with various tales of misadventure associated. Yet his success with the Fatum led him to attempt an even greater challenge - "Navigation By Crow".

Tiloryth in her summary make references to the two bindings then known, but several of her sources have subsequently revisited research. A significant analytical effort into the flow of funds through the court of Maximilian I revealed disbursement of funds to fourteen printers, twenty-one engravers, and, importantly, seven book-binders. We know of two of the bindings as said, but given the funds involved some of these were undoubtedly treasure-binders. With the clues given by those twenty-one sets of payment the web of acquisition was traced - here a bead-maker makes payment to a Portuguese trader, there a tannery purchases sixty chickens as 'cat-food'.

We still do not know. What has been established though is that some un-bound quires that were associated with "...Crow" have provenance that connects them to Peutinger as an owner of the text. The spacing of payments suggests that his one copy was copied, then those two, then those four - it would be idle speculation to suggest that these eight could be the "siebenbuchs" of legend, but there's an arithmetic appeal.

We have pages unprinted but punched, printed, punched, and not folded, accounts of the book in use, and some surviving sheets that show how certain parts were arrayed, but how they were arranged. The quire widely known as "the pinion" for the manner of its unfolding can be traced painfully step by step to Peutinger. So too the quire known as "entity three". Gibbons et al have spent years going back and forth on the oddities of "gathering four", though the copy they worked from was so damaged by the elements that we cannot know if it had ever been bound. There are suggestions from careful unfolding that hint at how the process of imposition was worked. The "black wing" of "gathering four" can now be matched (albeit mirrored) to "the pinion".

It was known that "The Pinion" was the thirteenth 'page' of Navigation By Crow. Information about other editions made it possible to infer page numbers for some fragments where they had not yet been added - it seems that pages were to be over-printed, possibly only having half (or less) of the text. When the team at MIT's Media Lab attempted to recreate "Navigation..." in their experimentation with processes they discovered that the holes through the pages could be used as guides. Their independent discovery was based on tenoned type-carriers, a toothed interaction with a punctuated plate - that it could have been predicted if they had spoken to anyone with knowledge of the discipline they were attempting to mechanise is neither here nor there...

While the Crow-poet is a total unknown, their translators are slightly less a mystery. We know of seven employed by Peutinger, though their efforts were not collaborative (as with the King James Edition) but competitive. Seven perspectives compounded by differing survival rates and muddier scholarship. As an appendix we have included Signora Corpia's translation from her collection "Sharp Scarlet Grasp". More intriguing for our purposes is the implication of the pinion's folds that the sections we know of imply another - regressive computer-aided folding analysis suggests that in a 3-dimensional space there is no arrangement of seams where the 'spine' of the unfurled pinion is fixed that does not require there to be (at least) an eighth page on the obverse.

-excerpt from 'The Endless Cousins of Else Humbracht' Herr Doktor A.M. Verargerter

-VII-

-Navigation By Crow p.13/7-

(ibid)

_Hark now to their treasures, no mere sovereign nicks away_

_To appease hunger ravening another place and day_

_Not the cup liquid of the undead or tomes of the first_

_Offer slake to hoarded appetite or completion's thirst_

_Does a shark swim in stone or a cob weave web in amber?_

_No matter that before they did thresh or did clamber?_

_Emerges a fresh island, clean slate, storied labyrinth unbuilt_

_In scriptorium is uncopied word less real than the gilt?_

_Returning to the first, moving backwards, for making right,_

_Few hurts remove themselves when called again, and through the night_

_Knives cut not, no King's fruit shall rot, 'neath sheltering heavens_

_Once cast, old shadows fall, making twos where stood elevens_

_On that prosperous archipelago where tales begin_

_Look glassly to the cruel sea, see ending's approaching fin?_

-VII-

-FIN-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I (crossestman) was learning French (badly) for the first or perhaps third time a glossary in a text-book suggested that a roman-à-clef was a 'mystery novel' which is asymptotically close to correct. That proximity to truth should be considered a moment formative to this work. Various razors (Hanlon, Occam, Stone) are here wielded ergodically. You will note that this thirteenth part of twelve has itself thirteen parts. Any debt felt in this collaboration is felt doubly in return, and (by genuine sentiment more than geometric progression) four-fold to you the reader.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fic I decided to write based on the fact that I kept sending Segundus to meet Jane Austen in Bath while playing the boardgame of English magic, and I found the idea too charming for words. 
> 
> My first proper and official collaboration with Crossest Man! Just thanking him in the notes isn't good enough any more; he is an ideas factory and deserves credit.


End file.
